Busy Bees could be poised to buy back the UK nursery business from its Australia-based parent company ABC Learning Centres.
Last week ABC, the world's largest childcare provider, said it was considering selling its UK nurseries alongside the voucher company and property assets.
The voucher business was put up for sale earlier this year as part of a move to rescue the debt-ridden company after it plunged into a shares crisis, which saw A$755m (£360m) wiped off its value in one day (News and Analysis, 6 March, News 13 March).
In a statement ABC said, 'The company has previously advised it was considering selling its property assets in the UK. In addition, the company is now considering selling the UK nurseries business and the UK property assets in a single transaction.
'A number of highly conditional indicative proposals for the entire UK business have been received. A sales process has commenced and discussions are continuing with interested parties.'
Meanwhile, the founder of ABC, Eddy Groves, has struck a deal with the board to buy back some of his shares in the company, in exchange for his A$1.6m salary.
Mr Groves and his wife Le Neve Groves were forced to sell most of their stake in the business they started when the share price plummeted to a low of A$1.15 in February.
They sold 12,165,301 ordinary shares and retained just 3,186.
Under the new arrangement Mr Groves has exchanged his entire salary for 6,956,522 shares and Le Neve will take half of her A$600,000 salary in shares.
The deal will mean that the couple have bought back 1.5 per cent of the company and they will make a profit of the share price exceeds A$1.15.
Busy Bees managing director John Woodward would not comment directly on whether or not Busy Bees would be putting in an offer to buy back the UK nurseries and voucher business.
He told Nursery World, 'It's not surprising that people are speculating. The current management team are interested in remaining associated with Busy Bees for a long time in the future. We all intend to stay.'
Commenting on ABC's decision to sell the UK business, he said, 'I think they've taken a prudent view on what they should do.'
He said Busy Bees was still in the market to buy other nurseries and that the voucher business was continuing to expand, adding, 'There is a real strong urge for the current management team to continue.'
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