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* Bain, TPG lead investors in Quintiles
* Private equity-backed IPOs this year perform well (Adds background on IPO market)
By Soyoung Kim and Olivia Oran
NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Quintiles Transnational Corp,the largest provider of testing services to drugmakers, haschosen Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc and JPMorganChase & Co as joint bookrunners for a planned initialpublic offering, people familiar with the matter said onWednesday.
Quintiles, owned by private equity investors that includeBain Capital LLC and TPG Capital LP, held "bake-off" talks withinvestment banks to appoint bookrunners for an IPO, Reutersreported last week.
The proposed offering would come five years after Bain andTPG became lead investors in Quintiles in January 2008, when OneEquity Partners sold its stake in the Durham, NorthCarolina-based company. Britain's 3i Group Plc andSingapore's Temasek Holdings are minority investors inQuintiles.
Private equity-backed IPOs have put in a strong showingsince the start of the year, prompting more buyout firms toconsider a stock market flotation as a way to exit theirinvestment.
Bain was not immediately reached for comment. TPG, MorganStanley, Barclays and JPMorgan declined comment. The sourcesasked not to be named because the matter is not public.
Quintiles relies on pharmaceutical companies outsourcingmore of their non-core research functions. The company recordednet service revenue of about $3.5 billion for the 12 months tothe end of June 2012, according to Moody's Investors ServiceInc.
Regulatory filings from publicly listed 3i show that theprivate equity firm valued its 7 percent stake in Quintiles at109 million pounds at the end of March 2009, implying an equityvalue for Quintiles of 1.56 billion pounds ($2.46 billion).
By the end of March 2012, 3i valued its stake, that haddropped to 4.9 percent, at 86 million pounds, implying an equityvalue for Quintiles of 1.76 billion pounds ($2.77 billion).Nevertheless, an IPO could value the company substantially aboveor below such mark-to-market estimates.
Private equity backed offerings have enjoyed a strongperformance so far this year.
Shares of cruise line operator Norwegian Cruise LineHoldings Ltd are up 38 percent since their IPO earlierthis month. The company counts TPG and Apollo Global ManagementLLC among its backers.
Shares of Bain-backed child-care provider Bright HorizonsFamily Solutions Inc which also went public in Januaryare up 30 percent. (Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Olivia Oran in New York; Editingby Bernard Orr)
