The top news item on yesterday’s PE Week Wire was that federal regulators had charged several unnamed individuals with insider trading related to the $45 billion buyout offer for energy company TXU. Specifically, it alleged that the culprits stood to gain $5.3 million after having used inside knowledge to trade TXU stock options just days before […]
Update: Watch the video here. I’ll be on CNBC’s Sqwawk Box program tomorrow morning at 7:40am ET, to discuss how the recent public market correction will affect private equity and M&A activity. My initial thoughts harken back to a speech given by Scott Schoen of Thomas H. Lee Partners, during last year’s Yale Private Equity […]
Clear Channel Communications owns an enormous number of radio stations and billboards, but apparently believes that U.S. Postal is the best way to amplify its pro-buyout message. The company today is sending out a letter urging shareholders to vote in favor of a $19 billion offer from Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, despite some […]
The TXU energy deal looks destined to become the biggest buyout ever. But the deal already may have set a record for the largest reverse break-up fee ever agreed to—an eye-popping $1 billion. In just the last two years, reverse break-up fees have become a common feature of going-privates and other large LBO transactions, a […]
Update: The deal was just announced. Download the press release here: TXU_Release.pdf The Blackstone Group’s claim to the largest leveraged buyout might not last more than a month. Various press reports suggest that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group are nearing a deal for Texan energy giant TXU that could be valued […]
It seems that we may be on the back end of the ethanol (and biodiesel) peak. While the President continues to call for increased consumption, the wonders of the invisible hand are working in the real world. If dealflow is any guide, we are seeing fewer investment proposals. There was a time when these ideas […]
It seems like the 2005 drop in Canadian buyout volume was an aberration, based on new data from the CVCA and Thomson Financial. Disclosed values for buyouts of Canadian companies totaled a record US$10.9 billion last year, which is more than double the $4.5 billion tally from 2005. It also is higher than the $6.7 […]
Warburg Pincus has taken a legal double-whammy in a South Korean court, on charges that it had engaged in insider trading of LG Card shares. Prosecutors had indicted Warburg Pincus managing director Hwang Sung-jin last April, and yesterday a judge sentenced him to four years in prison. The judge also fined Warburg Pincus approximately $57 […]
(Download data here: RaisingBids.pdf) I’ve been taking some reader heat for my latest thesis du jour: Private equity firm adulation/omnipresence is causing public shareholders and strategic buyers to feel that initial take-private offers are artificially low – thus resulting in a need to either raise or abandon bids. Recent examples include Equity Office, Harrah’s, Elkcorp, […]
(Updated) Equity Office shareholders yesterday overwhelmingly approved the $55.50 per share buyout offer from The Blackstone Group, thus cementing the largest-ever LBO at around $39 billion (including around $16 billion in assumed debt). I wrote a few days ago that Blackstone might be better off losing the deal if it were able to collect the […]