Breakingviews
Fresh flames rise from Sealy’s ever-burning bed
By Stephanie Rogan
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
The burning bed is flaring up again. Uppity hedge fund H Partners, alleging a dormant stock price at Tempur Sealy and private equity directors asleep on the job, wants the boss sacked and a seat on the board. A torturous financial history suggests it’s probably time to light a fire under the company and the industry again.
Dick’s buyout has financially sporting chance
By Kevin Allison
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Dick’s Sporting Goods may become the next private equity plaything. The $6 billion basketball-to-fishing vendor is mulling a leveraged buyout, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday. A relatively clean balance sheet means there’s an opportunity to make money. It would, however, require healthy growth assumptions for $6.1 billion Dick’s at a time when stiff online competition is challenging many retailers.
Acquirers can expect more M&A investor skeptics
By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Success begets imitation, especially in Wall Street’s M&A factories. More than $3.2 trillion of deals were proposed around the world in 2014. More will be encouraged by the uproarious response given by investors to shares of acquiring companies. As the easy pickings evaporate, though, the laws of corporate finance will prevail. Buyers can expect greater skepticism.
Dry powder may explode in buyout barons’ faces
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
In the private equity world, almost everything is going up. That’s just not as good as it sounds for buyout barons.
Private equity shows signs of pre-crisis brio
By Chris Hughes and Olaf Storbeck
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.
Private equity’s hunt of large European targets has landed a rare catch. The 3.75 billion euro ($4.7 billion) leveraged buyout of Switzerland’s SIG Combibloc has demonstrated that financial sponsors can still stretch to get a sizeable transaction agreed.
Carlyle buys a shovel-maker for deal gold rush
By Quentin Webb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
In a gold rush, it pays to sell the shovels. Carlyle, the U.S.-based private equity firm, is teaming up with British publisher Euromoney to test the adage for the modern era. With stock sales, debt issuance and M&A booming, they’re acquiring Dealogic, a seller of financial data, for $700 million.
Spreadsheet bungles alive and well in high finance
By Richard Beales
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
There’s no rule about Excel’s infallibility. Yet obvious spreadsheet errors still occur, even in the citadels of high finance. No less a practitioner than Goldman Sachs double-counted some of Tibco’s shares in calculating the business software company’s value in a sale worth $4.3 billion – oops, make that $4.2 billion. Both the firm and its client must have been distracted.
Blackstone sale may kick off next deal trend
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
It’s the end of the beginning for Blackstone. The M&A advice business that Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson used as a cornerstone to build their buyout firm three decades ago is being offloaded. Merging it with a fledgling shop run by former Morgan Stanley investment banking chief Paul Taubman potentially heralds the start of something else. The rise in global mergers could spawn a super-boutique or even entice a big bank to buy an indie firm.
Henry Kravis spins a different kind of club deal
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Henry Kravis is spinning a different sort of club deal. The old kind, in which several private equity shops would make an acquisition together, led the buyout baron’s KKR to join the recent hefty settlement of a lawsuit that alleged collusion with other firms. In the new iteration, KKR buys Pioneer’s DJ audio equipment business for $550 million. Kravis is laying down a smooth groove in a funky M&A market.
Hedge-fund-free – the latest Californian fad?
By Richard Beales
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Call it the Sacramento Model. In contrast to the famed Yale Model for endowments, Calpers, the $300 billion Californian pension manager, is exiting its $4 billion of hedge fund investments. For retirement funds, Calpers’ hedge-fund free regime could be more than the latest fad from the Golden State.
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