Crunch time for LBOs
Thomson Learning
The deal was to back the $7.75 billion buyout of academic and humanities information provider Thomson Learning by Apax Partners and pension group Omers. The original structure involved a leverage multiple of 9.8 times through to the PIK loan and had to be restructured in June. It was scaled down from $2.14 billion to $1.6 billion, with the underwriters eventually having to take down the $540 million bridge loan instead of issuing a $540 million senior unsecured holdco PIK FRN. The $1.2 billion term loan B was flexed up from 250 basis points over to 275bp over. The deal was underwritten by JPMorgan, Citi, UBS and RBS. ...
