Download PDF Introduction February 26th 2007 marked one of the peaks of the pre-financial crisis exuberance: KKR [NYSE: KKR] and TPG [NASDAQ: TPG], together with a number of banks including Goldman Sachs [NYSE: GS] and Lehman Brothers, announced the acquisition of the Texas power company TXU for an astounding $44.3bn Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Lackluster equity capital markets are showing signs of recovery, after almost two years of low activity. The downturn was initially caused by rising uncertainty as high inflation, rising interest rates and a gloomy economic outlook that encouraged investors to ditch growth stocks and turn to safer, more Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The Issa Borthers, along with their private equity partner TDR, made the headlines in early 2021 when, out of relative obscurity, they acquired the UK supermarket chain ASDA from the US giant Walmart [NYSE: WMT] for an enterprise value of £6.8bn. Despite having acquired susbtancial wealth through Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Subscription models are not a novel concept, in fact it can be traced back to its origins in 17th century England. Now, though, subscriptions are everywhere, from paying your phone bill to subscribing to your local gym or even for your monthly coffee delivery. Subscription models have Read more…
Download PDF Introduction After years marked by scandals, accounting malpractices, poor strategic decisions, and an overall faulty corporate governance, Toshiba seems to have found a buyer. On March 23, 2023, the Board of Directors approved a $15bn offer from a consortium of 17 domestic companies and 6 financial institutions, led Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Over the past decade, private equity firms, previously known for their aggressive takeovers of large corporations, entered the relatively somber world of insurance. Apollo Global Management [NYSE: APO], under the initiative of co-founder Marc Rowan, entered the world of insurance through building Athene. The idea was that Read more…
Download PDF What is an emerging market? The term “emerging market” was first coined by Antoine Van Agtmael, a former economist at the International Finance Corporation, in the early 1980s. At the time, Van Agtmael was working on a project to identify new investment opportunities for the IFC, which was Read more…
Download PDF The Change in Deal Structure Recent macroeconomic activity has impacted the private equity industry dramatically. A strong reliance on leverage in your business model means that when the market for leveraged loans tightens significantly, you must resort to using lower levels of leverage. In December 2022 the private Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Once seen as too unpredictable, consumer brand leveraged buyouts have grown in popularity over the past two decades. Fashion cycles and shifts in consumer preferences increase the risk of such buyouts, as cash flow generation is, in general, less certain. Yet deals such as Permira’s acquisition of Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On November 10th 2022, Origin Energy Ltd. [ASX : ORG], received and backed an $11.8bn takeover bid from a consortium led by Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management [NYSE : BAM] and private equity firm EIG Global Energy Partners. The business is to be split up, with Brookfield acquiring Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On October 31st, Thermo Fisher Scientific [TMO: NYSE], one of the global leaders in the supply of scientific instrumentation, announced that it had entered a definitive agreement to acquire The Binding Site Group, a Birmingham-based specialty diagnostics firm. European private equity firms Nordic Capital and Five Arrow Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On September 27th, 2022, the US-based, private equity firm Energy Capital Partners announced the end of the buyout negotiation of the British waste-management company Biffa Plc for £1.3bn (ca. €1.5bn). The deal is valued at 410 pence per share, or 28 per cent more than the FTSE Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On September 21st, European private equity fund Investindustrial announced that it is buying 52% stake in Italian luxury food and beverages group Eataly. The deal will see Investindustrial invest €200m in the company, with plans to increase its worldwide presence. This came as a surprise to many Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On April 14th, it was announced that Italy’s known Benetton family and US investment fund Blackstone made a buyout offer for Atlantia, valuing the company at €54.3bn. What could be the second biggest deal of the year globally, only behind Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft ($69bn), would Read more…
Download PDF One topic has dominated the financial news recently: tech-stocks falling out of favor with investors. The pandemic-era dominance of tech has come to an end, with US value stocks outperforming growth by around 10% year to date. Most tech-stocks have collapsed over the last 3 months, with the Read more…