[Monday update] It looks like negotiations on the Home Depot Supply sale will drag into the weekend, as the three-headed monster continues to bicker with itself. One head is Home Depot, which was the first to blink by entertaining the notion of a $1.2 billion price reduction. It seems that its entertainment is serious enough to be deemed an upper-crust dinner […]
I was on CNBC this morning to discuss how hedge funds are forming side vehicles to invest in public companies that already have agreed to go private. As I’ve been saying for over a month – almost all of these deals will get done, so such a strategy is smart (although would have been smarter […]
Turnaround firms have enough dry powder to support a major offensive. Now the question is whether the downturn they’ve been stockpiling for is finally at hand. Fund-raising by firms that take active roles in distressed situations, either as creditors or owners, has really gathered steam in the last few months. Together such firms have raised […]
Goldman Sachs is raising a $1 billion fund to buy “hung bridge” debt from leveraged buyouts, peHUB has learned. It is called GS Liquidity Partners III, and is being marketed with a two-year term, 1.25% management fee and 20% carried interest. Goldman Sachs and its employees are expected to contribute $100 million. The first GS […]
Big buyout firms exploit the tax code, use debt financing to vacuum cash out of portfolio companies, fire legions of workers, and they may actually endanger the public pension funds they claim to bolster. Oh, and it’s possible they contributed to the bridge collapse in Minnesota. That’s the case Andy Stern, president of the Service […]
I’ve been trying to get my head around something Tony James said during Monday’s Blackstone earnings call. He argued that the past few weeks have caused a PE market shakeout, which has knocked out a variety of peripheral players. The result, he said, would be less competition for deals. Sorry, but it just doesn’t make […]
“Please don’t report that I’ve joined Cerberus. I think I could be in big trouble if it appears in print. Maybe even fired…” That came from a private equity pro who had sent me a “change of address” email when moving to Cerberus, because I happened to be in his contacts list. Most private equity […]
Please say a prayer for the future of American journalism. No, not because Rupert Murdoch has agreed to buy Dow Jones – but because “the world’s only reliable newspaper” is closing its doors after nearly 30 years of service. That paper, of course, is World Weekly News – which has scooped the MSM on such […]
Conventional wisdom is that equity sponsors are desperate to see their “hung” buyouts close, in the face of crunched credit and the corresponding possibility that certain banks might jump the bridge. And I don’t doubt it – as no one wants to put several months of work into a deal that falls apart due to […]
TXU shareholders should hold on to their proxy postage, as Thomson Financial is reporting that the company’s $45 billion buyout could be on the verge of collapse. The report says that banks led by Citigroup are thinking long and hard about reneging on their $37.2 billion in debt financing commitments, which included $25.9 billion in […]