The private equity consortium led by Providence Equity Partners walked away from a deal with Informa, the publisher of Lloyd’s list, after the consortium’s lending banks were unable to finance an increased bid amid the global financial crisis. The consortium’s decision, conveyed to the UK Takeover Panel, marks one of the first large deals to collapse since the credit markets went into turmoil. Following the publisher’s rejection of a 450p a share bid at the start of September, the Informa board made it clear it would not accept any offers around that level. Informa’s share price has fallen almost 15% in a week and closed Thursday at 342p, reflecting market fears that after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, leveraged deals have become almost impossible to finance. The consortium’s lending banks – including Barclays, RBS, Bank of America, Lloyds TSB, ING, Bank of Ireland and HSBC – were offering to lend just above five times Informa’s ebitda, equivalent to total debt of about £1.5bn.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 5:19 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, Private equity. Tagged with informa, providence. Edit this entry.