While retail concentration gives global supermarkets the power to set prices and squeeze food manufacturers and farmers, the retailers themselves are being squeezed from another direction - private equity funds.
Continue reading "Carrefour's blues: global retailers squeezed by private equity fund activism" »
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.
Continue reading "Casino Business Wobbles at High Stakes Debt Table " »
Since 2005, the French-based fast food chain Buffalo Grill, with some 300 restaurants in France, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, employing over 6,000 workers has been owned by the US-based Colony Capital.
“Vandevelde exits Carrefour as private equity moves in”, The Independent, (08 March 2007)
“The future of the French supermarket colossus Carrefour was plunged into uncertainty yesterday after a Californian private-equity company and France's wealthiest man joined forces to acquire almost 10 per cent of its shares.... "
Colony Capital LLC is one of the largest REITs in the world with US$14 billion invested in properties globally. In 2005 Colony Capital bought the Singapore-based hotel chain Raffles Holdings Ltd. for US$1 billion including 41 hotels and resorts (15 Raffles Hotels and 26 Swiss Hotels & Resorts) in 35 countries.
Continue reading "Colony Capital buyouts in the hotel industry" »