It looked like the deal to take BCE (NYSE: BCE), the parent of Bell Canada, private would be hung up by the unwillingness of banks to take on huge amounts of debt during a credit crisis. Instead, the $35.4 billion deal will probably be killed by the Canadian courts.

Some BCE shareholders sued the company, saying the deal was unfair to them. The debt holders who brought the suit may be fools, but they won. According to Reuters, "the Quebec Court of Appeal said that BCE, Canada's largest telecommunications group, failed to prove that a buyout could have been structured to provide a satisfactory price for the company's shares while avoiding an adverse effect on the debenture holders."

If the entire deal for the BCE buyout fails, all parties who hold a piece of the company may be hurt. But, the debt holders have certainly put the stockholders in a very ugly place. The court ruling may give banks some excuses to walk away from the transaction. Providence Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn, and other institutions who put the deal together may have to watch all of those fees disappear in smoke.

And, a buyout that normally would have ended up in court because banks wanted to break their words may be killed because one class of stakeholders bested another.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 newsletter.

The biggest buyout ever blocked by Canada courts originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 22 May 2008 04:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It is the last big buyout left from 2007, the leveraged deal to take Bell Canada (NYSE: BCE) private. The transaction is worth almost $52 billion. Like several LBOs before it, banks are negotiating to get a better price, or kill the deal.

According to The New York Times, "The negotiations over the Bell Canada buyout began to fray late Friday." Banks in the deal, including Citigroup (NYSE: C), want higher interest rates and other concessions. The private equity firms trying to close the transaction, which include Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners, may elect to sue the banks to close. The tactic was used in the buyout of Clear Channel (NYSE: CCU). It worked, but the price still ended up lower than the original offer.

Since the banks have no shame in walking away from these deals, in many cases, observers probably hope courts will force closing on the terms that each party signed up for. But that is merely a child's fantasy. BCE trades at just under $39 after hitting $44 last November.

After hard negotiating and a threat of court visits, watch for a deal to get done below $40.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

A failure for a huge LBO? Bell Canada (BCE) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 19 May 2008 09:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.