Private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners has agreed to buy Autobar Group, Europe's leading food and soft drink vending machine operator from rival Charterhouse Capital Partners for €1.2 billion- the latest in a series of recent such deals where assets are being sold by one private equity firm to another.

London headquartered Autobar is one of Europe's leading vending operator supplying and operating hot and cold drink, snack and food vending machines.

Apart from the Autobar brand, the company has other brands like Cafebar, the office coffee systems and beverage dispensers, Pelican Rouge of coffee, ICS, the coffee roaster and producer of instant vending products that supplies to over 50 countries worldwide and Chequer Foods, the contract catering and food packing service.

It operates nearly 255,000 vending machines in 11 countries in Europe having around 100,000 customers and had sales of €569 million in the year to March 2010.

Charterhouse, one of the UK's largest buy-out firms had acquired Autobar from the Kuwait Investment Authority in 2004 for €850 million.

Charterhouse, which has done over 128 transactions, worth an aggregate €38 billion in transaction value, said that it will retain 11 per cent stake in Autobar.

Luxembourg and London headquartered CVC Capital, one of the world's five largest private equity  firms that manages over $38 billion in funds, is likely to buy Autobar's rival Selecta, Europe's largest vending services company by sales.

Switzerland-based Selecta operates 150,000 vending machines in 24 countries and had sales of over €700 million last year. Its current owner is German insurer Allianz, which had acquired Selecta in 2007 from Compass Group Plc, UK's contract food service operator for £772 million.

The merger of Autobar and Selecta would create the largest vending machines operator in Europe having more than 400,000 vending machines across the continent and revenues of around €1.3 billion.

''Autobar provides core services to around 100,000 clients in 11 countries in Europe. We have been impressed with the track record of growth in this business and we are pleased to have the chance to back Andrew Bristow and his team in the next stage of Autobar's development,'' said Rob Lucas, managing partner at CVC.

''There are a significant number of growth opportunities for Autobar in the market today, and CVC and Charterhouse are excellent partners with whom to pursue these opportunities over the years ahead,'' Bristow, CEO of Autobar.

Private equity firms, which have been holding about $500 billion that they had raised from investors and have held back investing during the global recession, have suddenly ignited the mergers and acquisition sector with a series of purchases, mainly in Europe and the US.

Most of the takeovers in Europe have been made by private equity firms, which have bought companies from rivals. According to Bloomberg data, private equity firms have announced $78 billion of takeovers this year, which is double compared to last year for the same period.