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By Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim
NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters) - The private equity arm of OMERS,one of Canada's largest pension plans, has hired Barclays Plc and Harris Williams & Co to explore a sale of UnitedStates Infrastructure Corporation (USIC), three people familiarwith the matter said this week.
The Indianapolis-based infrastructure services company,which maintains the underground cables of telecommunications,power and water utilities, could be valued at around $800million based on annual earnings before interest, tax,depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of about $100 million,the people said.
USIC and OMERS declined to comment, while spokespeople forBarclays and Harris Williams did not respond to requests forcomments. The sources asked not to be named because the processis not public.
The niche market for utility line-locating services wasvalued by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services at $1.6 billionlast year.
USIC was formed in 2008 when private equity firm Kohlberg &Co acquired and merged two companies active in the undergroundlocating and marking service sector - SM&P Utility Resources Incand Central Locating Service Ltd.
In just over a year, USIC's EBITDA had grown by 65 percent,according to Kohlberg's website. In 2010, Kohlberg sold USIC toOMERS Private Equity for an undisclosed amount. It was OMERS'second private equity deal in the United States following itsacquisition of rail maintenance equipment company Nordco Inc in2009.
OMERS Private Equity has over $6.5 billion of assets undermanagement and has been carrying out investments since 1987. In2012, it posted returns of 19.2 percent, strongly outperformingthe total portfolio of OMERS, which reported a 10 percentreturn. OMERS has total net assets of over $60 billion.
