Leveraged finance practitioners hoping for a pick-up in activity in Asia were left disappointed with the withdrawal of key sponsors from the buyout of Chinese online-game developer shanda games. The development in effect kills any financing opportunity for foreign lenders and is likely to be an all-Chinese affair. Only a few weeks ago eight banks were preparing to underwrite a US$750m-$850m loan backing the leveraged buyout of Shanda Games. Five of the lenders were foreign banks, some of which had spent considerable time and effort negotiating with the sponsors. All that seems to have been wasted after the original sponsors walked away from the equity consortium buying Shanda. Primavera, Carlyle Group, FountainVest Partners and US-listed Perfect World withdrew from the deal last week without citing any reasons. Shanda's controlling shareholder, Shanda Interactive Entertainment, remains in the deal.
展开▼
