US-based investment house KKR has made a $2.6 million cash bid for Sydney-based and ASX-listed accounting software company MYOB (which stands for Mind Your Own Business).

The bid comes after KKR acquired a 17.7 per cent stake in MYOB from Bain Capital, which now retains just a six per cent stake in the Australian company.

KKR is looking to acquire all remaining shares in MYOB at $3.70 a share, a 24 per cent premium on Friday’s close price of $2.98.

MYOB appears to be taking the bid seriously. It has hired the services of UBS as a financial adviser and Clayton Utz as legal adviser.

CEO Tim Reed yesterday said that the offer demonstrates the value MYOB has created in the market.

“Early indications are that in KKR we have gained a supportive and interested shareholder who is confident in the company’s strategy and people, as Bain were, and we expect will continue to be with their remaining shareholding,” he said.

But he warned: “There is a lot of water to go under the bridge between this proposal and any potential resulting transaction.”

CDN notes that a lot of water has already gone under the bridge, CDN having been around when this story started back in the 1990s. MYOB Down Under began life as the product of US company BestWare, in competition with the then better-known Quicken line.

The Aussie distributors were two young entrepreneurs, Brad Shofer and Craig Winkler, who spent countless hours Australianising the US product and promoting it via tiny booths and personal contacts at trade shows around Australia.

Schofer left the company in 2003 and it was eventually sold to the multi-million dollar US-based Bain group, which remains a shareholder. MYOB floated on the ASX in 2015.