BCE has received confirmation from Industry Canada that all the conditions laid out in the decision of April 8, 2008 have been fulfilled. The marks a positive step towards closing the deal as all regulatory hurdles have been overcome.
Private equity is seeing some healthy signs of recovery as private equity giants like Blackstone, Carlyle, and Bain all made acquisitions this week. The largest deal was made by Blackstone that made a $1.67 billion buyout of Apria Healthcare Group, which was followed by PepsiCo Inc.’s acquisition of JC Lebedyansky, a Russian juice company. See a list of last week’s largest deals here:
Tremors from the credit crunch can still be felt to this day in as far away places as Japan. Deals are getting done, but at lower multiples. Before the liquidity problems in the market, prices paid were at multiples of 10x the annual earnings of Japanese companies. D&M Holdings was sold to Bain this week at 6.7x. This is an indication of not only how much competition there is in the market for good deals, but of the large sums of capital competing for the same prizes.
By Jeff Watson, Loewen & Partners
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