Leveraged Loan Insight & Analysis – 12/7/2015

The average purchase price for large corporate LBO deals is still well below the large-scale deals struck during the buyout boom, but select mega deals are resurfacing. The average purchase price year to date for large corporate LBO deals is around $1.8 billion, slightly behind 2014 levels of $1.9 billion, but far lower than the $5.1 and $4.0 billion average tracked in 2007 and 2008, respectively. However, larger deals have surfaced this quarter for Solera (US$6.5bn), First Eagle Investment Management (US$4.0bn), and BELK (US$3.0bn). The average purchase price for large corporate buyouts jumped in 4Q15 to over US$2.0bn from US$1.55bn in 3Q15.  And slated for 2016, deals are even larger for MedAssets (US$2.7bn), Petco Animal Supplies (US$4.6bn), and Veritas (US$8.0bn). This week, Keurig Green Mountain, announced it will be bought by an investor group led by JAB Holding for a whopping US$13.9bn. This is the largest LBO deal tracked since Dell’s US$25bn buyout back in 2013.  Speaking of Dell, although not a pure play LBO, the looming Dell/EMC deal  does have a PE component and is of a massive scale with a purchase price of $67 billion.