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’Bargain-hunters circle Baugur
UK retail mogul Sir Philip Green is facing competition from TPG, the US buyout group, in his attempt to gain control of Baugur’s UK high street assets by buying the debt of the Icelandic company. TPG has told the Icelandic government it is interested in acquiring the £1bn-£2bn of debt owed by Baugur to the country’s collapsed banks.
The WaMu wipeout: who gets hit?
Everyone has been so caught up with the largest bailout of all time, that they’ve somewhat missed the US’s largest bank failure of all time (trumping Continental Illinois).
Washington Mutual was taken over by the FDIC last night,
TPG clears way for WaMu sale
TPG, the private equity firm, has taken action to facilitate a sale of ailing Washington Mutual, the largest US savings & loan company, waiving its right to be compensated for dilution from any future capital raising.
Private equity takes on $8bn in RBS loans
Royal Bank of Scotland is selling to US buyout firms Apollo, GSO Capital, Blackstone and TPG as much as $8bn in loans made to finance acquisitions by private-equity firms, highlighting their transformation into investors in deeply discounted debt as they purchase more leveraged buy-out financing from banks.
Asciano rejects TPG’s A$2.9bn offer
Asciano, the Australian-listed ports and rail operator, on Monday night rejected a A$2.9bn ($2.7bn) cash takeover proposal, claiming that an unsolicited offer it had received from a team led by TPG Capital and a General Electric-backed fund undervalued its business.
TPG in $2.7bn bid for Australia’s Asciano
TPG Capital, the buyout arm of David Bonderman’s TPG Inc, and Global Infrastructure Partners offered A$2.9bn ($2.7bn) for Asciano, the Australian port and rail owner spun out of Toll Holdings last year,
TPG mulls bid for UK’s Paragon
TPG Capital is considering a bid for Paragon, the UK’s third largest buy-to-let mortgage lender, less than three weeks after the US buyout group infuriated the City by pulling out of a £179m capital injection for Bradford & Bingley.
Er, why is B&B trading above the rescue price?
And why, for that matter, is HBOS – suffering from the same liar loan/buy-to-flip virus – trading just 4p lower, bang on its own “rescue” refinancing price of 275p?
Think about it.
Bungling chief executive Steven Crawshaw agrees a statement back in April pooh-poohing some nonsense in the press saying Bradford & Bingley is talking to Citi planning a rights issue.
Bungle bank
bun.gle [buhng-guh l] v, n. 1. v (with object) to do clumsily and awkwardly; botch: He bungled the job. 2. v (wihout object) to perform or work clumsily or inadequately: He is a fool who bungles consistently.
TPG pulls out of B&B rescue
Bradford & Bingley’s largest shareholders on Thursday night stepped in to rescue the ailing mortgage lender after TPG Capital, the US private equity group, pulled out of a £400m capital increase. The emergency rescue was triggered shortly after Moody’s informed B&B it planned to cut the bank’s credit rating.
TPG plans to bring in experts at B&B
TPG, the US buyout group poised to become a 23% shareholder in troubled UK lender Bradford & Bingley, is willing to bring in senior managers with banking expertise on a temporary basis if its stake purchase is approved by investors next week.
Buyout firms eye Huawei mobile unit
Global private equity firms are this week finalising their first round bids to acquire a major stake in the mobile devices division of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker. Huawei hopes to divest a sizeable stake in the unit to a buyout firm that could help to develop its US sales.
B&B holders enraged by TPG deal
Investors in Bradford & Bingley reacted furiously on Wednesday as the UK’s biggest buy-to-let mortgage lender said it had granted TPG Capital anti-dilution rights to protect the US buyout group’s planned £179m investment.
China’s Safe invests in TPG fund
China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) has agreed to invest more than $2.5bn in the latest TPG fund, in what could be the largest commitment ever made to a private equity firm. The move highlights the growing inclination of sovereign wealth funds to invest through private equity firms – rather than directly – to minimise potential political backlash.
B&B directors spend big on stock
Seven directors of Bradford & Bingley have bought shares in the UK mortgage lender in a move aimed at demonstrating their confidence. Rod Kent, who has taken over as executive chairman of B&B, bought 350,000 shares costing £242,000 after a turbulent week that has seen B&B issue a profit warning which caused it to reprice its rights issue and bring in buyout group TPG as a 23% investor.
Verizon in talks to buy Alltel
Verizon Communications, the second-largest US telecoms group, is in talks to acquire Alltel, the fifth-largest US mobile network operator, for $27bn in cash and paper, reports the FT. The talks come just six months after Alltel was bought for $27.5bn by TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.
B&B loan data raises more concerns
Bradford & Bingley’s specialist mortgage loan book has a high proportion of home loans taken out by borrowers who have relatively little equity in the property, the FT has learnt. The UK’s biggest
Lombard: Pre-emption remains the preferred Britsh cure
Rumours of the death of the rights issue are surely exaggerated. This peculiarly European practice – an alternative to the more common US capital-raising technique of placing large chunks of equity with single investors – took a knock on Monday when Bradford & Bingley,
B&B chief cites three priorities
Rod Kent, the Bradford & Bingley chairman now with executive responsibilities, spent Tuesday locked in meetings at the bank’s London offices sorting out the turmoil at the UK’s biggest buy-to-let lender which saw buyout firm TPG buy a 23% stake.
Blogging the B&B analyst call
Kick off is scheduled for 9.30am, as B&B faces a doubtless hostile group of City analysts.
9.31 – we’re being thanked for our patience. Waiting for more participants to join the fray.
9.33 – nothing yet.
TPG buys £150m stake in B&B
Bradford & Bingley, the UK’s biggest buy-to-let lender, will announce Monday that private equity firm TPG will invest £150m in buying a 20% stake and that its chief executive, Steven Crawshaw, is to step down due to a serious heart condition.
Merrill and TPG discuss closer ties
Merrill Lynch is holding talks with buy-out firm TPG to discuss closer ties – including the possibility of TPG investing in Merrill. The two sides met most recently in New York on Monday. The participants included John Thain,
Leveraged loan clearout, Citi edition
Following in Lehman’s footsteps? More questions than answers are raised by the news that Citi is shifting $12bn in leveraged loans to a group of private equity firms.
The proposal is ostensibly a scaled-up version of Citi’s October plan to shift $10bn of LBO debt in a joint venture with KKR.
Pink Picks
Comment and analysis in the FT on Wednesday,
Comment: Martin Wolf — Don’t blame Greenspan
When a wave of destruction hits, everybody looks for somebody to blame. Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman,
Citi in $12bn loan sale to private equity
Citigroup is nearing a deal to sell $12bn in leveraged loans at a discount to a group of leading private equity firms, marking another step in chief executive Vikram Pandit’s efforts to shrink Citi’s balance sheet.
WaMu to raise $7bn from outside investors
Washington Mutual, the largest US savings and loan group, will get a $7bn cash infusion from investors to boost its capital and cover losses arising from its subprime mortgages. WaMu, which said it expects a Q1 loss of $1.1bn,
For TPG, it’s new rules for an old sandbox
In the space of about 24 hours, TPG has been showing it’s determination to rewrite — or rather, bend — the conventions of the game. With its war-chest bulging with unspent cash, the buy-out firm has sewn up what it claims is the biggest private equity transaction in Russia:
TPG in Russia private equity deal
TPG Capital, the US buy-out group, will on Tuesday announce Russia’s biggest private equity investment, paying $800m for a 50% stake in SIA International, the pharmaceuticals distribution company. The deal,
WaMu poised for $5bn injection
Shares in Washington Mutual, the largest US savings and loan group, rose sharply on Monday as a group of investors led by buy-out firm TPG prepared to invest more than $5bn in the company – about half of it from TPG.