Let's go surfing: TPG in $766m buyout bid for Billabong

Private equity firm TPG Capital has launched a fresh takeover bid for surfwear manufacturer and retailer Billabong, after the company rejected a similar overture last week.

Billabong said in a statement to the ASX that it received a proposal from the buyout company at $3 a share. It comes after the $766 million offer TPG made to the board last week.

That offer included a condition banning brand sales, which the company effectively broke by announcing plans to sell off a 48.5% stake in its best-performing business Nixon to another private equity group Trilantic Capital Partners.

TPG's local boss is Harvard-educated Ben Gray, who we included on our Money Movers power list last year as a contender to watch. He's also the son of a Tasmanian premier and one of the mid-90s Melbourne University power set currently dominating the world of investment banking.

Texas-based TPG is most well-known for its debt-fuelled $1.4 billion takeover over of Myer in 2006, which it sold out of in 2009.

TPG were also part of the consortium involved in the failed multi-billion dollar Qantas takeover in 2007.

Goldman Sachs is advising Billabong on the deal, where Christian Johnston (no. 10 on our Money Movers list and a friend of Gray) runs the investment banking division.