leveraged buyout

leveraged buyout, acquisition strategy whereby a company is purchased by another company using borrowed money such as bonds or loans. In numerous cases, leveraged buyouts (LBOs) have been used by managers to buy out shareholders to gain control over the company, and the strategy played an important role in the restructuring of corporate America in the 1980s.

Empirical evidence shows that many LBOs, like other types of buyouts, often result in significant improvements in the firm’s performance, as measured using a range of indicators from cash flow to return on investment. This can be explained by a combination of factors, including tax benefits, strengthened management, internal reorganization, and change in corporate culture. On the other hand, LBOs may cause disruptions and economic hardship in the company purchased as its assets serve as collateral for the borrowed money the purchasing company used for the LBO. This loan is often repaid with the future profits and cash flows from the purchased company or, failing that, by selling its assets (i.e., dismantling the company). LBOs also raise a number of ethical issues, notably about conflicts of interest between managers or acquirers and shareholders, insider trading, stockholders’ welfare, excessive fees to intermediaries, and squeeze-outs of minority shareholders. Although minority shareholders may well receive a good price for their shares (an average of 30% to 40% more than the market price), they generally do not benefit from the massive financial rewards of shrewd post-buyout strategies.

Of the many firms associated with LBOs, such as The Carlyle Group, The Blackstone Group, and the now-defunct Forstmann Little & Company, one of the most well-known is the New York City-based private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR and Co. L.P.). Not only did KKR pioneer the LBO approach to buyouts in the late 1970s, but the most famous LBO in American history was the takeover of RJR Nabisco by KKR in 1988, for the record amount of $25 billion. The acquisition was later chronicled and popularized by award-winning journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar in their book Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (1990), which introduced many people to the world of hostile takeovers and financial speculations in corporate America.

The use of LBOs in the United States started to decline in the late 1980s for two reasons. First, companies started to develop preventive strategies and defensive tactics; “poison pills” were created to deter hostile bids, typically by giving current shareholders particular rights to buy additional shares or to sell shares with severe economic penalties for the hostile LBO acquirer. Second, changes in state legislation made such takeovers more difficult, especially following the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s in which the investors’ gains were eventually paid by taxpayers. Additionally, the rise of litigations against leveraged bids, often with allegations of violations of antitrust and securities laws, also contributed to the dearth of LBOs. The early 21st century has seen a number of LBOs, especially in the high technology sector where cable and software companies have become the targets of private equity firms.