Locusts of attention

摘要

THE BID was months in the making. On February 27th the supervisory board of Thyssenkrupp announced that a consortium led by two Anglo-Saxon private-equity firms, Advent International and Cinven, had beaten one led by two others, Black-stone and Carlyle, in the bidding war for Thyssenkrupp Elevator (tke), a division of the troubled conglomerate. They paid €17.2bn ($19bn), a rich price for the world's fourth-largest liftmaker. It is the biggest private-equity deal ever in Germany, and one of largest anywhere in Europe.