Saturday, February 16, 2013

Megadeals Return for How Long?


Street.com cited one cause of the return of the megadeal:

As a result of access to cheap financing and corporate balance sheets flush with cash, "there is an appetite in the marketplace for big deals." 
The author forgot private equity underwriters need to mobilize cash raised prior to the financial crisis.  South China Morning Post reported:

PEU firms are under growing pressure to invest the capital they already have. About 28 per cent of the money raised from 2006 to 2008 has been paid back to investors, according to Cambridge Associates, a Boston-based research and consulting firm.

More than US$100 billion, or 14 per cent, of the US$702 billion raised, is yet-to-be invested dry powder that firms must use or lose by the end of this year. That is a record for uninvested funds set to expire in a single year.
Unless PEU "policy making" billionaires can impose another crisis, deal prices should go up.  How might David Rubenstein defend his firm after the next round of "covenant lite" excesses

Many PEU deals done at the height of the buying frenzy need refinancing.  If banks won't refinance, PEU's will have to do it themselves.