Despite all the rumors, the $24.7 billion buyout of Alltel (NYSE: AT) got done. With the credit crunch and botched deals, the stock definitely showed volatility. But, the private equity folks at Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) certainly didn't lose interest in the company. The stock price on the transaction was $71.50.

No doubt, Alltel made some key strategic moves to make itself attractive to private equity sponsors. Perhaps the most important initiative was the spin-off of its wireline business in 2006. Basically, this provided more focus for the company.

To get some more perspective on the deal, I checked out the proxy disclosures. Alltel took the approach of a quicker auction – so as to minimize leaks as well as try to get a better valuation.

Alltel had its financial advisors put together a summary LBO (leverage buyout) analysis. The estimates ranged from $59.75 to $70.50. This assumed that the company could fetch 6.5x to 8x multiples on EBITDA by 2012, which would produce a return ranging from 17.5% to 22.5% per year.

All in all, this looks like a textbook example of a quality deal. Yet, there are certainly risks. After all, Alltel will need to manage a debt load of $23 billion.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

The Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Management are on track to complete their $90 a share buyout of Harrah's Entertainment (NYSE: HET) by the end of the year. According to a report out of New Zealand, TPG, along with its East Asia affiliate Newbridge Castle, is already shopping for an addition to its gaming business.

In August, SkyCity Entertainment Group (NZE: SKC), which owns casinos in Australia and New Zealand, announced it was interested in testing the sale value of some of its assets. Instead, it received an expression of interest in acquiring the entire company. The unnamed suitor is now thought to be TPG.

The two have a history. SkyCity bought its Auckland casino from Harrah's for $20 million in 1998. Since then, SkyCity has fallen on hard times. It netted $98.4 million in 2007, down 18.1% from 2006.

The SkyCity properties would fit nicely with other TPG gaming holdings including Harrah's and London Clubs International, making it a huge player in the worldwide gambling scene.

With the potential for great riches, private equity has become a magnet for top-notch executives.

Take a look at TPG (Texas Pacific Group). Today, the firm announced that it has hired Kevin Rollins as a Senior Advisor.

Of course, his latest gig was as president and CEO of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), where he spent 11 years. Before this, he was a partner and director at Bain & Co., a firm that has made lots of money providing strategic advice to private equity firms. In fact, the firm spun out Bain Capital in the 1980s, which has emerged as one of the largest private equity firms in the world.

As a Senior Advisor, Rollins will be kind of like a Bain consultant. Although, if there is a company that needs a veteran CEO, he may go back to being an operator.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Perhaps The Donald should assign some of his interns to price out the value of Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRMP). It seems, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer, that the company's asking price of $22 a share is double what the prospective buyer is willing to pay.

In an analysis that would deflate the ego of a lesser man, Bear Sterns Cos. Inc. recently placed a fair-market price of $11 on the stock, which is trading modestly above that level. Trump Entertainment Resorts, which owns casinos in Atlantic City, is thought to be very vulnerable to new gambling venues in development in New York and New Jersey. Earlier this month, CEO James Perry was forced out due to his lack of support for the rumored sale to Dennis Gomes and JEMB Realty Corp.

The disconnect between TER's expectations and the market's valuation of the company has a couple of troubling aspects. Given the sweet deal Harrah's Entertainment recently penned with Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group, Trump's paltry valuation makes even more obvious its shortcoming. And since the company hired Merrill Lynch to help craft a deal, I have to wonder who is avoiding a reality check here.

Trump Entertainment is in a precarious position to turn down a legitimate offer, but the spread between the two positions could well prove as impenetrable as The Donald's coiffure.

Alltel Wireless will be far more competitive following the $27 billion buyout by divisions of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Texas Pacific Group.

How fast will Alltel be able to scale its customer base and compete with the big four wireless companies? Much faster as a private company if you ask me.

Without quarterly numbers to hit, the company can pour capital into becoming what it has the potential to be and at some future time re-enter the market for the payoffs for GS Capital Partners and TPG Group. Until then, we'll all see what Alltel can do to compete with the larger carriers over time. With this buyout probably having been in the works for most of 2007, you can bet a solid plan is already in place.

With 12 million customers. Alltel is the fifth-largest wireless company behind AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile USA. It owns wireless liceneses giving it coverage area bigger than the larger four carriers, which is a huge attraction for the private equity firms who already are drawn to the red-hot wireless industry.

The upside is great for this deal since people are dropping land line telephones and moving to the wireless and Internet telephony.

Now it's time to execute.

Over the past few years, private equity firms have shown an appetite for mega deals -- and even riskier sectors, such as semiconductors.

A prime example is the $17.6 billion buyout of Freescale. The buyers included Blackstone Group, Carlyle, Permira Advisers, and the Texas Pacific Group.

Well, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal [a paid service], the deal may show the inherent risks of the new approaches to private equity. That is, Freescale has posted weak financials lately. A big problem as been the slowdown from its major customer, Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT).

Of course, the private equity sponsors understood the volatile nature of the semiconductor industry. They also realized that the debt markets were carefree with lending money. As a result, there is about $1.5 billion in Freescale debt that is variable. This means that the company can defer payments (kind of nice, huh?).

This is fine so long as the company eventually comes back. But, history is not so kind to semiconductor companies and there is certainly a good amount of competition. Another nice feature: Freescale can call on $750 million in new loans at any moment.

No doubt, it's good to be in the private equity business. Although, as for those holding debt in these deals, it does look fairly risky.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Last week, it certainly looked like the buyers of Qantas Airways -- Texas Pacific Group, Allco Equity Partners, and Onex Corp. -- did not have enough shareholder support for the $9 billion transaction.

Well, things can certainly change quickly and it appears that a U.S. investor has saved the day. This is according to a report in Bloomberg.

The conventional wisdom was that the tough hurdles of the deal would be the Australian government and unions. Actually, they proved fairly easy compared to some tough shareholders who want to maximize their returns.

Then again, Qantas is a great franchise and continues to grow. So why not try to get top dollar?

So it's going to be a long weekend for Qantas and its determined buyers. Although, this is still not a done deal. Now, in the next stage, Qantas will need to get 70% acceptance on the tender.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

I can understand why CEOs complain about federal disclosure laws. It can be very revealing.

Take a look at the latest filing from TXU (NYSE: TXU), which is currently involved in a $32 billion leveraged buyout.

The company's CEO, C. John Wilder, certainly has a parachute that is pure gold. If the buyout deal gets done, he stands to walk away with $279.3 million. It sure beats the gold watch. In fact, I think he'll soon be able to buy a nice island (and no longer need to deal with those pesky federal regulations).

Okay, in the world of private equity, this is normal stuff, but in the world of utilities, this may not be so normal – or acceptable.

TXU's buyers – KKR and the Texas Pacific Group (TPG) – have been working pretty hard to keep this deal on track. But, with the CEO's compensation disclosure, I think things may get much tougher.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Private equity pros make the big bucks because they understand market cycles. Interestingly enough, the pros are in the process of cashing out – as seen with Blackstone and perhaps Apollo Management.

Now, according to the Wall Street Journal [subscription required], it looks like the Texas Pacific Group (TPG) is joining the crowd.

Although, TPG doesn't want to do a traditional public offering. Instead, the firm wants to sell a small equity stake – say 20%. The buyers would include some of their loyal investors like pensions and insurance companies.

How much? It's too tough to tell. But, with TPG, we're probably talking a figure with nine zeros or so.

Then again, this may really be the first stage in becoming a public company. That is, these investors may have a registration right and that would mean allowing the shares to trade on public markets at some point.

All of this stuff is in the early stages. But, within the next six months, we are definitely going to see a lot of cash-out action.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

According to a story in Women's Wear Daily, it looks like Neiman Marcus' private equity owners -- Texas Pacific Group (TPG) and Warburg Pincus -- are considering an IPO of the firm. They bought out the company back in 2005.

The IPO could come as early as this summer, although it's more likely to be early next year.

Neiman Marcus has been posting strong results lately. In the fiscal second quarter, sales increased 8.5% to $1.3 billion and operating earnings spiked from $69.7 million to $127.8 million. The company plans to expand the number of its stores to 50-52 by 2010, up from 44. Neiman has also been building out clearance centers, called Last Call.

There has been a drought in retail IPOs. But in light of TPG's highly successful IPO of J. Crew (NYSE: JCG), there's likely to be some interest in a Neiman Marcus offering.

For more news & views about private equity, please see BloggingBuyouts.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

On March 30, private equity firms Silver Lake and Texas Pacific Group completed the buyout for Sabre Holdings. The company has a variety of travel assets, such as Travelocity, Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions.

The deal required $5.4 billion in financing (including fees). Here's the break-down:

Equity from TPG, Silver Lake	$1,386,205,738
First lien senior secured revolving facility	$500,000,000
First lien senior secured term loan facility	$2,400,000,000
Second lien senior secured term loan facility	$700,000,000

Deal background:

Over the past few years, there has been lots of dealmaking in the travel industry. But perhaps the factor that encouraged Sabre to sell out was Blackstone's $4.3 billion buyout of Travelport in June.

By September, Sabre's bankers – Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) – started to place calls to several private equity firms. There was also interest from a strategic party.

By December, Sabre received two formal bids. But it was the offer from Silver Laek/TPG that was the most attractive. The price was for $32.75 per share.

According to the valuation from Goldman Sachs, here's how the deal stacks up with other transactions:

	Enterprise Value Multiple of LTM (last 12 months) EBITDA	Total Debt Multiple of LTM EBITDA
Citicorp Venture Capital Equity Partners L.P. and Teachers Merchant Bank/Worldspan, L.P. (March 2003)	5.0x	3.1x
BC Partners and Cinven Funds/Amadeus Global Travel Distribution, S.A. (January 2005)	7.8x	5.4x
The Blackstone Group /Travelport Ltd. (June 2006)	7.6x	6.3x
Travelport Ltd. (a portfolio company of The Blackstone Group) / Worldspan, L.P. (December 2006)	5.5x	4.5x
Sabre Holdings Corporation (based on management estimates for LTM as of December 2006)	10.2x	7.8x

For more news and views about private equity, please see BloggingBuyouts.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

With the hoopla of the upcoming Blackstone IPO, KKR has not been getting much attention. Maybe that has been a good thing.

You see, according to a report from the AP, KKR has already scored $104.5 billion buyout deals this year (the recent $28 billion deal for First Data (NYSE: FDC) was a big help).

Even in the crazy world of private equity, this is stunning. After all, the #2 is the Texas Pacific Group, which has "only" $49 billion in deals for 2007.

Interestingly enough, the IPO process could be slowing down the activity for Blackstone -- at least for the next couple months. And with increased regulations, the drag could continue.

At the same time, KKR needs to be cautious. It's taken on a lot of volume and as valuations get steeper, the risks get more serious.

For more news & views about private equity, please see BloggingBuyouts.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Apollo Management LP may become the next private equity company to sell shares of itself to investors, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) have been retained to "explore" a potential public offering for a small percentage of Apollo valued at about $1.5 billion, the paper said, quoting "people close to the investment banks."

Interestingly, Apollo is downplaying the Journal's story. That makes me think that these people "close to the bank" probably work for one or both of them. Perhaps Apollo is being stubborn and Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan decided to nudge them along by leaking details of their potential deal to the press.

This happens more often than you think. My guess is that either a banker or a flack are the people in question here. I've been part of the negotiations that occur between these sources and reporters over the name they should be called in a merger story. Sometimes, they can become so convoluted that your head starts to spin.

If the Apollo deal happens, other private equity IPOs would follow. Quoting "people familiar with the matter", the Journal reported that bankers are pushing KKR to sell shares of itself to the public. Perhaps those same people who are trying to nudge Apollo are doing the same thing to KKR. If that's so, you can bet that other big private equity shops such as Texas Pacific Group and Carlyle Group will follow.

This is starting to get really interesting.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) is planning to raise $19 billion to $20 billion for the largest corporate buyout fund ever.

This isn't a total shock. As Reuters points out, rival bankers have argued that Goldman was excluded from the Blackstone Group IPO because it's viewed as too much of a competitor. Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein disputes this characterization.

Last month, Goldman joined forces with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group for the $45 billion TXU buyout, the largest ever.

Buyout funds are surging in popularity because of the growing demand by large investors for alternatives to stocks and bonds

But this is far from a sure thing.

``They have been leaders in identifying new trends and clearly this is where they feel their profit margins have the most growth opportunity,'' said Financial Advisory Service portfolio manager Douglas Ciocca told Bloomberg News. ``But this is risky if it decreases their liquidity.''

It will be interesting to watch to see how private equity firms and rivals on Wall Street react to Goldman's move.

Meanwhile, I bet hotel rooms are booking up fast near Goldman's headquarters in New York from companies both large and small eager to be acquired.

Back in December, Sabre Holdings (NYSE: TSG) announced a $4.45 billion buyout. The buyers included Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group (TPG). The price tag was a 30% premium over the past 60 trading days.

As almost ways happens, Sabre got served. There was a class-action suit as well as a derivative action lawsuit.

Did it increase the stock price? No.

But I'm sure it was lucrative for the attorneys.

This week, Sabre settled the litigation. Yes, this is something that seems to always happen. The suits are often nuisances and need to get cleared up before a deal gets done.

Although, one of the suits resulted in a reduction for the termination fee payble for TPG and Silver Lake. The fee will drop from $135 million to $80.

That's certainly a positive.

But, for the most part, I think these suits are really a nice gig for plaintiffs attorneys to rack up the fees. Add 'em to the big list of beneficiaries of the boom in private equity.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.