Vendor loans, equity swaps, all-stock combinations, and sovereign wealth funds are going to be facilitating M&A in 2009 proposed a panel of experts at Acquisitions Monthly’s Webinar this morning. “Vendor financing used to be the last resort to fill a gap but now we’re seeing deals where it is the only financing,” said Brian McKay, co-head of European M&A, Houlihan Lokey. The increasing tendency of vendors to staple 2.5x or 3x of leverage to an asset in order to open up a sale to private equity firms was “a remarkable phenomenon” he said.
World-Check, a provider of a global database of heightened-risk individuals and businesses, has acquired IntegraScreen, a provider of due diligence services to corporations and governments. No financial terms were disclosed. World-Check is a portfolio company of Spectrum Equity Investors.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Station Casinos missed an interest payment on its debt and said it may consider filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 as part of a restructuring plan, as the deepening U.S. recession batters the gaming sector. The company, which owns 13 casinos and gaming centres and operates a number of others, mainly […]
Jon Moulton has added his firm Alchemy Partners to the list of potential buyers of assets belonging to Icelandic investment group Baugur, which has entered a ‘moratorium’ period. “We have been reported as looking at some of those assets and we are looking at those assets,” Moulton told Reuters at the Super Return conference in […]
Best Vinyl Inc., am American Fork, Utah–based portfolio company of Marwit Capital, has acquired R&L Fence & Deck LLC, a Layton, Utah-based fabricator and installer of vinyl fence and related products in the Mountain West region. No financial terms were disclosed.
Permira and News Corp. have completed their $3.6 billion take-private buyout of NDS, a UK-based company that had been listed on the Nasdaq. Permira now holds a 51% stake, while News Corp. holds the remaining 49 percent. NDS provides end-to-end digital technology and services to digital pay-television platform operators and content providers.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China Investment Corp, a $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, and state-owned China Development Bank are both in talks to buy into CITIC Capital Holdings Ltd, an official newspaper said on Thursday. Three parties including CIC, CDB and CITIC Group, which is directly led by the State Council, China’s cabinet, are involved in […]
ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s biggest buyout fund Marfin Investment Group (MIG) said it was interested in Olympic Airlines on Thursday after a tender to privatise the loss-making national carrier collapsed. The government had appealed on Wednesday to Greek businessmen to step in after it announced the much-heralded privatisation process failed to attract satisfactory bids. “MIG […]
Update: Fortunoff has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. retailer Fortunoff is considering filing for bankruptcy again, nearly a year after the company was bought out of bankruptcy for about $100 million by NRDC Equity Partners, according to sources familiar with the matter. The company is in discussion with liquidators […]
Last month, Senator John Ensign (R-NV) introduced legislation that would have provided a temporary suspension of income taxes for companies buying back their own distressed debt. The plan did not make it into the Senate’s economic stimulus package, but Ensign nonetheless managed to get a compromise that would amount to a massive bailout for private equity-backed companies. For the uninitiated, companies are required to pay income tax on any “gains” made by buying back their own debt at reduced prices. For example, imagine that Wire Corp. negotiates with its lenders to buy back $1 billion worth of notes for $700 million. Wire Corp. would then be required to pay income tax on the $300 million difference. The original Ensign bill would have eliminated those taxes for 2009 and 2010, but the compromise would defer 2009 and 2010 payments until 2011 (at the earliest), and then allow them to be paid out over an eight-year period.