US PE firm Blackstone is near to buy almost 55% stake in the financial and risk business of Thomson Reuters for $14 billion. If TR management positively responds to this, this transaction would be the greatest move of Thomson Reuters since it was created. Thomson Reuters’ representatives, will meet on Tuesday to talk about the Blackstone’s all-cash offer for the F&R division. This division is the one that provides with the analytics, the news, and the relevant data. Because is so important, this division is the one that generate more than half the annual revenues of TR.
Interestingly, the banks would like to be part of the $14 billion acquisition of the majority stake of Thomson Reuters Financial and Risk division. Among them, there are JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, which lead the financing, and are in contact with Deutsche, HSBC, RBC, GS, and Barclays, which are considering joining.
“Every man and his dog is pitching to get in on the action”: this is a striking sentence that sums up the emotion of the moment.
This acquisition attracts a lot of important banks, which would like to have a role in the leveraged loan and high yield deal bond financing.
When the decision regarding “which bank is going to take which part” is taken, the financing – in March - will launch to investors. However, because recently market conditions have been seriously volatile, the banks are still waiting before the deal is launched. Also, the banks may take advantage of the high volatility, and ask higher fees and titles that justify the higher market risk.
An interesting point is that Blackstone’s investment, once completed, will bring the LBO firm in fierce competition with Bloomberg, as well as the New Corporation’s Dow unit, in analytical, trading and data services.
What will happen? History knows.
- Giulia Quinzi
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