BUDAPEST (Reuters) – China’s Yantai Wanhua Polyurethane Co (600309.SS) is seeking to buy a stake in privately owned Hungarian chemicals firm BorsodChem as a long term strategic investor, business daily Napi Gazdasag said. The paper said on Tuesday, without naming its sources, that top executives from the Chinese firm have held talks this year with […]
Bluewater Broadcasting LLC, a Montgomery, Ala.-based radio broadcaster backed by Alta Communications, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has between $10 million and $50 million in liabilities. www.altacomm.com
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Fortis Bank Nederland said on Friday it sold its trust and corporate management business Intertrust to private equity firm Waterland, removing a potential conflict of interest for the Dutch state. When Fortis’s Dutch operations were nationalised in Oct. 2008, Intertrust was included in the package — putting the government in charge of […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – Permira, CVC Capital and Bain Capital have been shortlisted for the second round of bidding for Bellsystem24, Citigroup’s (C.N) telemarketing company in Japan, sources with direct knowledge of the deal said. The sale of Bellsystem24 is expected to fetch more than $1 billion, making it the largest acquisition involving foreign private equity […]
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Private equity firm TPG Capital and the private equity arm of Russian state bank VTB (VTBR.MM) bought a large stake in Russian hypermarket chain Lenta, banking sources told Reuters on Monday. Their comments followed a report in Kommersant business daily that TPG and VTB had teamed up to buy 35.4 percent in […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – American International Group Inc (AIG.N) agreed on Saturday to sell a part of its asset management business to Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s Pacific Century Group for about $500 million, in the first major asset sale under the watch of its new chief executive. AIG, which was rescued by the U.S. […]
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Behind KKR's Ugly Real Estate Bet: "As part of its restructuring, Warren Buffett is doing a dance on Capmark's grave." (DealJournal) Private Equity Waits Out the Feds: More problem banks and less FDIC money mean tough takeover rules could eventually be loosened. (BusinessWeek) Speaking of KKR: The firm was poised to earn a return on the sale of Sun Microsystems to Oracle, but anti-trust concerns have made that less likely. But Deal Journal believes Europe will not block the deal. (DJ) The Gates Are Down: Well, the bad news for Cerberus continues. The firm has apparently barred investors in two new hedge funds from withdrawing money for three years. (FT)
As usual, we have a week's worth of ratings actions on the debt of LBO-backed companies from ratings agencies Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Moody's Investor Services. As has been the trend toward the end of summer, the number of downgrades has significantly fallen off. I noted yesterday that even the number of private equity-backed companies on S&P's "Weakest Links" list seems to have dwindled. The list represents companies which are most likely to default, and part of the reason it's shrunk may be because many of the companies have already defaulted. Company: Builders FirstSource, Inc.
Sponsor: JLL Partners Inc. and Warburg Pincus LLC
Action: Moody's lowered the company's probability of default rating of to Caa3 from Caa1.
Highlight: The downgrade reflects the company's recent announcement that affiliates of JLL Partners and Warburg Pincus, which own approximately 50% of BLDR's outstanding shares, offered to recapitalize the company. Moody's view the situation, as proposed, to be a distressed exchange and the Caa3 PDR anticipates these events.
NTK Holdings Inc. (Nortek), a Providence, R.I.-based maker of ventilation, air conditioning and heating products, said that it will file for bankruptcy protection as part of a restructuring agreement with its lenders. THL Partners acquired NTK from Kelso & Co. in 2004, and held a 66.48% equity stake as of late 2007, when NTK canceled a proposed $690 million IPO.
Yesterday Harvest Partners, a buyout firm based in New York, announced a deal to invest $80 million in listed natural gas services provider Regency Energy Partners LP. The PIPE deal is just another in a line of private investments in public equities-since the credit crunch, private equity firms have been increasingly attracted to the investment style. And in some cases they may be rewarded handsomely for basically playing the stock market. Leonard Green Partners, for example, could earn roughly twice its investment in Whole Foods Market in a matter of a year or so. Last November, the firm purchased preferred stock which pays an 8% dividend and is convertible into common stock worth 17% of the company. At the time, the stock traded around $10 per share. Today Whole Foods stock closed at $27.40 per share. Others have been less lucky. Sun Capital Partners' public equities fund, Sun Capital Securities, has struggled after losing all of its investment in Sharper Image when the company went bankrupt in 2008. And of course there's TPG's famous WaMu misstep.