Leveraged Buyouts (LBO) in private equity deals:Deal structure

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,3, European Business School - International University Schlo Reichartshausen Oestrich-Winkel, course: Corporate Finance, language: English, abstract: Igniting in 2005, the discussion about highly leveraged transactions conducted by financial institutions became a matter of great controversy in German politics as well as in the media. Fuelled by an influential voice in politics, LBO firms became the face of capitalisms evil by calling them a "Heuschrecke", an animal much feared in history for its exploitive behaviour and risks to the mediaeval agrarian economy (Die Zeit, 2005). In terms of todays Heuschrecke, according to public voice, downsizing and raiding represent the major risks attributed. Empirics show that the risk of downsizing in LBOs is falsified and that the occurrence of raids is rather irrelevant in todays buyout universe. However, even if both risks held, each would exhibit a comparably low impact on the economy as a whole. Contrary, the empirically evident high-impact risk of over-indebtedness in leveraged transactions is widely neglected. The negligence of this risk-issue is dangerous, particularly with regard to the recent developments in the LBO industry, debt capital markets and the worlds economy. First, analysing the latest LBOs conducted, it appears that the historical failures, such as the buyouts of Revco and RJR Narbisco are widely forgotten, as gearing ratios have become aggressive again. Second, the subprime crisis, which was exported from the US real estate sector into global capital markets, caused liquidity shortages - AA rated banks were not willing to lend money to their equally rated peers anymore - which led to a credit crisis. This credit crunch provoked that, even though in the US the prime rate has been reduced by 50 bp, and in the Eurozone the prime rate was not increased as planed, money became expensive; FIBOR, LI