Europe braced for LBO rush

摘要

About €18.5bn of leveraged buyout financing in the immediate M&A pipeline is expected to take some pressure offan overheating market and boost bankers desperate for underwriting and investors eager to put mounting cash piles to work. The M&A pipeline has been lacklustre for much of 2014 but has picked up recently with two large deals entering exclusive talks - for France's second-biggest telecoms provider sfr and Danish card payment services company nets - and a number of other deals in the final rounds of auction processes. Cable group numericable's potential acquisition of Vivendi's SFR will require around €13.5bn of debt financing roughly split between loans and bonds, and the acquisition by Advent International and Bain Capital of Nets would need about €1.2bn of debt financing.