Exclusive: One Call Care for sale for more than $1.5 billion: sources

One Call Care Management Inc, a medical cost containment services company owned by Odyssey Investment Partners LLC, is exploring a sale that may fetch more than $1.5 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter.

One Call Care Management has asked Jefferies Group LLC to handle the sale process and contact potential buyers, including private equity firms and companies in the industry, the sources said this week. They requested anonymity because the sale process is not public.

One Call, Odyssey and Jefferies declined to comment.

One Call provides workers' healthcare compensation payors, such as insurance companies, with discounted access to diagnostic radiology and neurodiagnostics providers.

The Parsippany, New Jersey-based company makes its money on the spread between the prices charged to these payors and the discounted prices contracted with providers and vendors in its network.

Odyssey, a New York-based private equity firm, acquired One Call Medical Inc in 2009 and merged it with industry peer MSC Care Management Inc in 2012.

One Call's $529 million acquisition of MSC was made possible partly through a $210 million senior unsecured term loan held by GSO Capital Partners, the credit investment arm of Blackstone Group LP , which also invested in One Call Care Management's equity, according to credit research notes issued at the time.

Besides the MSC merger, One Call had made several other acquisitions to expand its networks under Odyssey's ownership. Last week, the company said it would acquire smaller peer TechHealth Inc.

In August, Standard & Poor's estimated One Call's 2012 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization at $100 million to $110 million. The people familiar with the matter said this week that the company's 2013 EBITDA was seen at between $130 million and $150 million.

Odyssey is also looking at selling another of its business services companies, Evans Analytical Group LLC, two other people familiar with the matter said this week.

Odyssey, which manages more than $3 billion of capital in three private equity funds, took Evans Analytical private for 86.8 million pounds ($130 million) in 2008.

A representative for Santa Clara, California-based Evans, which provides analytical and testing services for materials, microchips and agrochemicals, did not respond to a request for comment on that sale process.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)