LBO Market Gets a Boost as BCE Compromises With Buyers, Banks
By Jason Kelly and Frederic Tomesco
July 7 (Bloomberg) -- BCE Inc. struck a compromise with its private-equity buyers and their lenders, keeping the world's largest leveraged buyout on track to be completed and giving a lift to the moribund takeover market.
A group led by Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan will close the C$52 billion ($51 billion) purchase by Dec. 11, Montreal- based BCE said in a July 4 statement. The three-month delay gives the banks more time to sell debt used to finance the LBO, while a decision by BCE not to pay common stock dividends effectively lowers the buyers' costs by more than C$900 million.
The transaction is one of the few to survive the global credit contraction that ended the buyout boom a year ago. Banks may increase LBO lending once the market absorbs the C$34 billion of bonds and loans issued for the BCE deal, said Rick Nathan, a managing director at Kensington Capital Partners Ltd. in Toronto.
``Given the overall environment for LBOs, this is quite an accomplishment by the buyer group,'' said Nathan, whose firm oversees about C$400 million in private-equity assets. ``There is a fundamentally different psychology in the marketplace. The sun is starting to come up.''
Banks have cut the backlog of LBO loans made before credit markets seized up in August to less than $100 billion from $350 billion, according to fixed-income research firm CreditSights Inc. in New York. The reduction came as more than 60 deals announced last year valued at a combined $174 billion were abandoned, including purchases of Alliance Data Systems Inc. and Harman International Industries Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
EquityPrivate, честито. LBO пазара май ще вземе да се отпуши
By Jason Kelly and Frederic Tomesco
July 7 (Bloomberg) -- BCE Inc. struck a compromise with its private-equity buyers and their lenders, keeping the world's largest leveraged buyout on track to be completed and giving a lift to the moribund takeover market.
A group led by Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan will close the C$52 billion ($51 billion) purchase by Dec. 11, Montreal- based BCE said in a July 4 statement. The three-month delay gives the banks more time to sell debt used to finance the LBO, while a decision by BCE not to pay common stock dividends effectively lowers the buyers' costs by more than C$900 million.
The transaction is one of the few to survive the global credit contraction that ended the buyout boom a year ago. Banks may increase LBO lending once the market absorbs the C$34 billion of bonds and loans issued for the BCE deal, said Rick Nathan, a managing director at Kensington Capital Partners Ltd. in Toronto.
``Given the overall environment for LBOs, this is quite an accomplishment by the buyer group,'' said Nathan, whose firm oversees about C$400 million in private-equity assets. ``There is a fundamentally different psychology in the marketplace. The sun is starting to come up.''
Banks have cut the backlog of LBO loans made before credit markets seized up in August to less than $100 billion from $350 billion, according to fixed-income research firm CreditSights Inc. in New York. The reduction came as more than 60 deals announced last year valued at a combined $174 billion were abandoned, including purchases of Alliance Data Systems Inc. and Harman International Industries Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
EquityPrivate, честито. LBO пазара май ще вземе да се отпуши

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