Public to private buyout deals to re-emerge
Date: November 19, 2008
LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) – A dearth of capital provided by banks may drive public companies into the arms of cash-rich private equity firms and could help kick-start the moribund market for public-to-private buyouts. There have been some signs of revival in the market that has been virtually shut for more than a year, private equity companies say, as institutional investors seek a way out of companies whose share prices have dropped.
There has been a pick-up in business in just the last couple of weeks, with two public-to-private deals going into the due diligence phase, said private equity partner Andrew Roberts at law firm Travers Smith. A slow drip-feed of liquidity back into the system next year could give more impetus to the market for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), he said. But he refused to comment on the deals under question. “It’s still going to be relatively small deals in the hundreds of millions rather than the billions,” he said.
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Source: Reuters
