Providence Equity Partners Ltd. and the Carlyle Group, private equity firms that are considering a joint bid for media company Informa Plc, UK, have announced that Hellman & Friedman LLC is also participating in the consortium.
The takeover of Informa is projected as one of the biggest leveraged buyouts in the UK since the credit crunch. Providence and Carlyle have, however, said that the proposal for a potential cash offer is at an 'early stage.'
According to media reports, the consortium has arranged a ₤1.8 billion financing package with financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and ING Groep. That would finance a bid of about 500p a share and value Informa at around ₤2.1 billion. The bidders will have to reportedly find an extra ₤1 billion to refinance Informa's debt.
Providence published its initial statement after Informa and United Business Media terminated merger talks last week. Informa, which publishes more than 2,000 trade publications and organises more than 10,000 conferences annually, has grown through acquisitions in recent years. The company bought market research firm Datamonitor Plc, scientific journal publisher Taylor & Francis Plc and conference organiser IIR Holdings Ltd. over the past four years.
