Goldman Enters Race To Buy £320m Notemachine

Its vast profits mean it is often described as Wall Street's equivalent of a cash machine.

Now (NYSE: DNOW - news) , Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) is looking to go into the business of owning ATMs by tabling a £300m offer to buy a company behind thousands of them.

Sky News understands that Goldman's private equity division has joined forces with an unnamed Asian party to bid for Notemachine, which owns more than 8000 cash machines across the UK and Germany.

Goldman's proposal was one of a number submitted last week to Corsair Capital, Notemachine's current owner, according to people close to the auction.

Among its rival bidders was Centerbridge, which is partnering with Corsair on a separate transaction to acquire more than 300 Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) (RBS) branches.

Centerbridge and Corsair are part of a consortium which two years ago agreed to acquire Williams & Glyn, a portfolio of branches and other assets being carved out of RBS under the terms of its £45.5bn taxpayer bail-out.

The Notemachine auction, which is being run by Jefferies, the investment bank, has also drawn interest from firms such as BC Partners.

Corsair acquired its stake in Notemachine nearly three years ago in conjunction with Peter McNamara, the company's founder, and other members of its senior management team.

Insiders believe that Corsair will make a handsome return from its investment in the ATM (LSE: 0LRG.L - news) operator.

The company supplies more than £5bn of cash through its network annually and says that 20m people use one of its ATMs every month.

Mr McNamara is a former Lloyds executive, later moving to chair the listed company MoneyBox.

Notemachine also owns the UK-based independent foreign exchange provider, Eurochange, following a takeover last year.

Corsair and the other prospective buyers are earning significant sums from RBS in the meantime through payments made as part of the deal.

A Goldman Sachs spokesman declined to comment.