Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) is readying a sale of its German oil and liquid storage company Tanquid in a deal that could value the business at nearly EUR 500m, said sources familiar with the situation.

Macquarie, which has held the business since 2005, has mandated its advisory unit Macquarie Capital to run the process and is expected to issue IMs in the next few weeks, said the sources.

Representatives for MAM and Macquarie Capital declined to comment.

Tanquid, which operates 3m cubic metres of inland storage facilities at about 15 sites across Germany and one in Poland, is being marketed off around EUR 50m of annual EBITDA, said the sources.

The business could be valued at around 10x EBITDA, given recent sale multiples in the tank storage sector, one source said, although other sources said it is more likely to fetch a single-digit multiple given its focus on oil products with fewer growth prospects.

Sources said other storage operators and strategic players could seek to bid for the asset, as well as some infrastructure funds, although it is unclear how many will have appetite for oil-heavy storage.

The sale process comes after Macquarie refinanced Tanquid’s debt earlier this year, with an EUR 335m seven-year debt package raised from Credit Agricole, KfW IPEX, NAB, PKO and SMBC, according to data compiled by Infralogic.

Tanquid’s largest sites are in Hünxe, in the industrial Ruhr area, and Speyer, in Rhineland-Palatinate, with more than 800,000 m3 of storage capacity each.

Macquarie set up Tanquid through the carve-out of the storage business of German rail group VTG in 2005 via its Macquarie International Infrastructure Fund (MIIF) and then transferred it to the Lombard Odier Macquarie Infrastructure Fund (LMIF) in 2007. LMIF was previously also invested in French oil storage business Pisto.

Tanquid is set to hit the market at the same time as LBC Tank Storage, a commodity storage operator with 3.3m m3 of capacity across Europe and the US. Its shareholders, Ardian Infrastructure, APG and PGGM, are also working with Macquarie Capital on the sale of the business, which was tipped to launch this month.

In the past year, there has also been a wave of refinancings in the sector, with VTTI, Evos, Macquarie-backed HES International, and JPMAM-backed BWC Terminals among borrowers raising USD 1bn-plus debt packages.