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March 24, 2011

Kraft and Private Equity Slash and Burn at UK’s Burton’s Biscuits

Burton’s Biscuits, the UK’s second largest biscuit manufacturer (after private equity-owned United Biscuits), has announced it will close its factory in Moreton, Merseyside, with the loss of 342 jobs, despite commitments to the union at the site that production would continue through May 2012. Workers at the plant, represented by Unite the Union, are being squeezed by two converging financial forces: transnational food giant Kraft, for whom Burton’s manufactures Cadbury biscuits and chocolate products, and Burton’s private equity owners.

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March 21, 2009

Buy'em, Bleed'em, Buy'em Again Cheap: Could Debt-for-Equity Swaps Secure Continued PE-Ownership of Bankrupt Portfolio Companies?

Private Equity funds may have found a new use for the uninvested funds (known in industry jargon as "dry powder") they're currently sitting on, which are estimated to total from USD 500 billion to as much as a trillion.

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January 29, 2009

'Wonderful Time, Wish You Were Here': US Buyout Funds Positioning to Profit from Potential New Tax Breaks

"This is an absolute wonderful time" to be in the private equity business, Blackstone head Stephen Schwarzman has told Bloomberg. Blackstone is currently raking in fees "advising" insurance giant AIG on how to raise cash through selloffs in the wake of the gigantic 2008 bailout.

Blackstone and the other pe funds have been lobbying hard to shape the Obama administration's stimulus package, now headed for the Senate, to extract maximum benefit from possible tax relief provisions on cancelled debt.

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April 11, 2008

Locusts into Vultures 2: Funds in $12.5 Billion Debt Buyback Deal

Desperate to move off the books over USD 43 billion in leveraged loans - loans it couldn't securitize and unload when the global credit crisis hit - Citigroup has found the ideal buyer: the private equity firms whose buyouts generated the loans.

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January 31, 2008

Growing Pension Fund Stakes Feed PE Search for 'Permanent Money'

CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, has taken its third direct ownership stake in a private equity firm by spending an estimated USD 275 million to acquire 10% of Silver Lake Group, a US-based fund specializing in technology buyouts.

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December 04, 2007

Casino Business Wobbles at High Stakes Debt Table

The gaming industry (casinos), a major employer in the IUF sectors generally thought of as relatively immune to cyclical developments, is showing signs of being hit by the credit crunch afflicting LBOs. Beginning with the 1998 Colony Capital buyout of Harvey's Casino Resorts, buyout funds have moved into the sector in a big way, attracted by the industry's tempting real estate portfolios and stable cash flows.

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