Finally, after searching high and low, long and hard - I found a...

Finally, after searching high and low, long and hard - I found a competitor.

HIG Capital has appointed three brokers to oversee a potential ASX listing of global translation software company Lionbridge, as first reported by Street Talk on Monday.

It is understood Morgan Stanley, UBS and Taylor Collison have been hired by the American private equity firm after a handful of investment banks were asked to pitch for the mandate last month.

Sources said HIG will likely seek to raise about $400 million for a market capitalisation of circa $700 million.

Reunion Capital - a boutique run by former Goldman Sachs bankers Mike Everett and Rob Penney - is advising the company and was involved with the pitching process.

Fund managers are expected to compare Lionbridge to Australian tech success story Appen, which listed in 2015, trades at 3.6-times forecast revenue and is now worth $1.4 billion.

While Lionbridge and Appen are not direct competitors, they operate in similar markets and use machine learning and artificial intelligence as part of their software.

In a timely update that may have helped its cause, last month UBS upgraded its recommendation on Appen to "buy" from "neutral", pegging its price target at $16. The analysts cited Appen's November upgrade and said the global tech sell-off had dragged down valuations materially.

On November 15 Appen lifted its guidance for underlying EBITDA for the 12 months to December 31 to a $62 million to $65 million range, reflecting a 120 per cent to 131 per cent increase on 2017 financial year's result.

It is believed to be the first time HIG has been spotted in Australian capital markets. The firm is based in the United States with about $US30 billion in equity capital under management across private equity, credit, special situations and real estate.

Sauce: AFR

Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. is a multinational software and professional services company specializing in language translation, localization, software testing, e-learning translation, internationalization, interpretation, software development & testing, and content development services.