Return of the large LBO

Large buyouts seem to have much in common with buses; you wait for one for ages and then two come at once. This is the case this month with the largest deals of the year on the verge of being completed within a week of each other. Both companies are incidentally former Alstom branches which were sold off. The first, Converteam, was bought by Barclays Private Equity only three years ago for around EUR150m and is set to make astounding returns with bids going in at around the EUR2bn mark at auction. In the end Barclays PE seemed to get cold feet and chose to retain a third of the company, sharing the other two thirds in equal parts with the management and new investor LBO France with whom exclusive negotiations have started. Apart from the incredible plus values recorded what is also interesting to note about the deal is the willingness of banks to provide credit for the deal supplying the biggest debt of its kind since the credit crunch hit. LBO France was also involved in the second ex-Alstom company Cegelec, which it acquired in 2006 for EUR1.1bn. Exclusive negotiations have been set up with Qatari Diar, part of the Qatar investment authority, for a deal in the region of EUR1.7bn