A preliminary auction for selling a full stake in ADT Caps, South Korea’s leading security monitoring and dispatch service provider, drew multiple potential buyers from home and abroad, heating up the bidding battle.

According to the investment banking industry on Friday, multinational private equity fund operators including CVC Capital Partners, Affinity Equity Partners, Goldman Sachs, and Macquarie reportedly submitted a tender for the preliminary auction on ADT Caps whose full stake is placed up for sale.

The securities company is owned by U.S.-based private equity fund Carlyle Group, which bought the company at $1.93 billion from U.S.-based Tyco International in 2014. Carlyle Group and its sale advisor Morgan Stanley plan to shortlist two to three contenders by the end of this year and select a preferred bidder after receiving final bids.

The sale price is expected to reach up to 3 trillion won ($2.7 billion), according to market experts.

ADT Caps is Korea’s second largest security company following S-1 Corp., a comprehensive security solution unit of Samsung Group. It posted an operating profit of 135.8 billion won on sales of 693.3 billion won last year.

By Chung Seung-hwan and Cho Jeehyun

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