Bankrupt lodging chain Extended Stay America Inc [ESAIN.UL] said investment firms Centerbridge Partners LP and Paulson & Co Inc agreed to invest up to $450 million in the company once it exits Chapter 11.

In a filing on Friday, Extended Stay said Centerbridge and Paulson would invest $225 million in equity and will backstop a $225 million rights offering.

(Reuters) – Troubled Florida lender BankUnited Financial Corp (BKUNA.O) has drawn at least one bid from a private equity consortium that includes WL Ross & Co, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Bids for the bank, which had assets of $13.1 billion and deposits of $8.7 billion as of March 31, were [...]

Remember when PE firms backed out of signed deals in droves? They looked like jerks at the time, but in retrospect, they were probably smart to avoid the overpriced, highly leveraged deals they had aggressively pursued for the past three years.

Taking into account the Dow’s record breaking drops last year, and assuming that a company’s stock price reflects its health, let’s look at the stock performance of 2008’s busted take-private targets and recoil at the premiums PE firms might have paid.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stephen Girsky, a veteran auto-industry analyst and private equity executive, is working with the United Auto Workers union with regards to any potential General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Chrysler LLC deal, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday. Girsky is president of Centerbridge Industrial [...]