Advent and Bain, which jointly own British payment processing company WorldPay and have teamed up for the Nets bid with Danish state-owned pension fund ATP, beat three other bidders in the final round of the auction, the sources said.

Nets and Advent declined to comment. Bain could not immediately be reached for comment.

The three other bidders were private equity fund Permira in partnership with Canada Pension Plan, French IT services company Atos (>> ATOS) and a consortium led by Swedish private equity firm Nordic Capital.

Nets Holding, which is privately owned by shareholders including Nordic banks Nordea (>> Nordea Bank AB), DNB (>> DNB ASA) and Danske Bank (>> Danske Bank A/S), was put up for sale last year when JP Morgan (>> JPMorgan Chase & Co.) was hired to advise on the auction.

The buyout is likely to be backed with a debt-financing package totalling between six and seven times Nets' approximate 183 million euro earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), denominated in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish crowns, as well as euros or dollars, banking sources have said.

(Reporting by Sven Nordenstam and Claire Ruckin; Editing by David Goodman)

Stocks treated in this article : ATOS, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Danske Bank A/S, DNB ASA, Nordea Bank AB