Private equity shows signs of new life
Date: December 10, 2009
Two-and-a-half years ago, before the financial crisis struck, the private equity industry was fast becoming the bete noire of unions, politicians, the media and a plentiful number of company boards. They were, according to a German politician, “locusts”, feeding on companies’ assets and cash. At the height of the market, Boots was bought for more than £10bn, while others including Sainsbury’s found themselves fighting off unwanted approaches.
Then, almost overnight, the industry disappeared from view, the credit crunch making its highly leveraged deals impossible to fund. And as the banks began teetering on the edge of collapse, a new generation of villains replaced the private equity buccaneers.
But over the past week, there have been indications that the moribund private equity industry is again showing signs of life. On Monday, it emerged that the US private equity firm Carlyle group had offered £536m for waste management company Shanks. On Tuesday, Apax Partners announced a £975m deal to buy Marken, a company that specialises in transporting pharmaceutical products such as blood samples between clinical trials. It was the biggest private equity deal in more than a year.
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Source: Guardian
