Cerberus, JF Lehman circle Austal as JPMorgan restarts auction

It has been several months of silence at Austal, the ASX-listed shipbuilder which brought in JPMorgan to gauge interest in a buyout. Now it seems that two North American private equity firms – Cerberus Capital Management and JF Lehman & Company, are back and serious about a proposal.

Street Talk first reported that JPMorgan was working with Austal in June. Since then, there have been plenty of suitors in for a look at the company, which has lucrative contacts with the US Navy but is performing poorly. In August, Austal’s head of US operations abruptly left, and the company reported a loss of $13.8 million, down from a $79.6 million profit.