All the private equity rage today is Alltel Corp., which agreed to be acquired for $27.5 billion by TPG and Goldman Sachs. If successful, it would be the eighth-largest leveraged buyout in history – sandwiched between pending deals for First Data and Clear Channel. Here are the top ten leveraged buyouts in history, according to […]
Chryslerus was the lead story on yesterday’s NBC Nightly News. The into by CNBC’s Phil LeBeau was an accurate representation of private equity, in which he said that most PE firms are aggressive with their investments, and sometimes break up companies. But then NBC played this brief and bewildering comment from Casaba Csere, editor-in-chief of Car & Driver: […]
I’ve spent an ungodly portion of my day discussing the Chryslerus deal with various reporters — the majority of whom know fairly little about private equity. This is not a knock on them, but just a point of fact. The result has been numerous questions about how many people Cerberus plans to layoff (answer: check […]
This morning’s big news is that Cerberus has agreed to buy Chrysler (or at least most of Chrysler) for approximately $7.4 billion. Of equal import, the deal has gotten the Good Autoworkers seal of approval from the UAW, so any sort of post-agreement battle is highly unlikely. Three very quick observations, which will certainly be […]
Last month, KKR and GS Capital Partners agreed to acquire audio equipment maker Harman International for approximately $8 billion. As a sweetener for skeptical Harman stockholders the buyers offered to let approximately 8.3 million shares be swapped for equity in the private edition of Harman. That works out to around $1 billion, or a 27% […]
Insider trading has become the ugly stepchild of take-private buyouts, as small-market scammers have infiltrated the big kids table. Nobody involved will admit their wrongdoing, of course, but the breadcrumbs can often be found in the options trading market, where unusual activity may well reflect that some deal info was leaked by a sponsor, banker, […]
Remember when Dow Chemical fired two executives last month for allegedly trying to stoke buyout interest in the company? Well there are now a pair of competing lawsuits about the matter, with one of the fired execs suing Dow, and Dow suing both of its former charges. Here is the digruntled exec’s suit: Dow_Suit.pdf Here […]
Just as private equity dominates news headlines today, the masters of the Wall Street universe 20 years ago were an investment bank (Drexel Burnham Lambert) and a form of debt with which the firm had become inextricably linked (the junk bond). They were fabulously successful for nearly 10 years, but Drexel’s high yield empire didn’t […]
Sometimes a strategic just can’t get it done alone. That may be one of the snapshot lessons from today’s announcement that Smith & Wollensky (Nasdaq: SWRG) has agreed to be taken private for $94.6 million. The upscale steakhouse operator had originally agreed to be acquired for $9.25 per share by Patina Restaurant Group, but then […]
Monday Update: Thomson confirmed that it has made a “preliminary approach” for Reuters. I’ve received dozens of emails this morning asking if the rumors are true that Thomson Financial has offered to buy Reuters. My official response – per internal dictate – is that I have no response. My unofficial response is that I have […]