Thanksgivingis right around the corner, which makes this a perfect time to talk about turkeys. No, not the kind that you devour at the traditional holiday dinner. Rather, transactions and strategies that once looked smart but have turned utterly fowl. The kind of thing that makes you say, "Boy, was that a turkey!" Herewith, my turkey list for 2013, from both the public and private sectors. txu buyout In 2007three of the smartest outfits on Wall Street-Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Texas Pacific Group-combined to pull off a $48 billion leveraged buyout of the former Texas Utilities, the biggest going-private transaction in the history of the world. Oops. The deal started going bad about two seconds after it closed because the price of natural gas fell, making TXU's coal-fired plants less competitive. Even Warren Buffett got suckered into this turkey, buying $2 billion of beaten-down bonds and betting on a turnaround that never came. The company is now in bankruptcy talks. I especially love the grand new name the buyout barons gave TXU: Energy Future Holdings. Too bad they had no idea what the future held.
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