It seems I’m failing at this whole “vacation” thing. I’m set to appear on CNBC’s Squawk Box program at 8:10 this morning, to discuss the second-half private equity outlook. In short, I’m optimistic that the heady dealflow pace will continue. The industry is being faced with a number of challenges — tax law scrutiny, bond […]
The Wall Street Journal today asks if the private equity deal frenzy is nearing its end, and then quotes private equiteers who answer affirmatively. But it neglects to add a colossal qualifier: They don’t mean it. In most cases, it’s just lip service. Like when Red Sox players say that they’re still worried about the Yankees […]
Thomson Financial has just released an M&A and Private Equity Snapshot, for year-to-date 2007. Here it is: M&A Snapshot.xls Bullet points include: * Private Equity M&A accounts for 20.5% of year-to-date M&A activity, up nearly 4 percentage points from last year at this time. Private Equity activity in the U.S. accounts for 35% of overall […]
Goldman Sachs and SBI Holdings today announced a joint investment program, which will deploy approximately $820 million for mid-sized Japanese companies over the next three years. And it seems that Goldman might already have some targets. According to a May 17 client research report, Goldman has identified 64 listed Japanese companies that it believes would […]
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, […]