Directorship | Boardroom Intelligence » m & a

Buffett Linked to Possible Microsoft-Yahoo Accord

Joseph McCafferty — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

“When we thinkof history’s great treaties, we think of the Treaty of Paris, the Treaty of Versailles…and the Treatyof Omaha.” So begins an item posted yesterday andpicked in today’s Wall Street Journal’s “Deals and Deal Makers” column thatsuggests it could be up to Warren Buffett to help smooth the way to a Microsoft-Yahoo hookup.

Buffett’sBerkshire Hathaway doesn’t have holdings in either company but on his boardsits Yahoo president Susan Decker and Microsoft cofounder and chairman BillGates.

ThoseBerkshire Hathaway board meetings could “get tense” if a deal between the twocompanies isn’t brokered.

NYSE to Buy American Stock Exchange

Joseph McCafferty — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

The privately held American StockExchange will be purchased by larger rival NYSE Euronext, the company said yesterday. The purchase strengthens NYSE’sposition in the options market, as well as in exchange-traded and closed-endfunds.

Under the deal, which is the first forNYSE Euronext under the leadership of Duncan Niederaur, who was named CEO after John Thain left to helm Merrill Lynch, the company will pay $260 million in NYSE Euronext common stock for Amex. Additionally, Amex members will be entitled to receive additional shares of NYSE common stock based on the net proceeds from the expected sale of Amex’s lower Manhatten headquarters.

The NYSE collaborated with Euronext inApril, and its rival Nasdaq Stock Market struck deals in 2007 to buy thePhiladelphia Stock Exchange, the Boston Stock Exchange, and, with Borse Dubai,the Stockholm-based OMX, according to Forbes.

The deal to buy the exchange comesamid a vast wave of consolidation among exchanges, and confirms previous rumors of NYSE’s interest in the Amex, which is one of the five largest U.S. optionsexchanges, along with Chicago Board Options Exchange, International SecuritiesExchange and the Philadelphia Exchange, Forbes reports.

NYSE revamped its automatedoptions trading business last year, and the deal will help it grow inthat area, according to Forbes.

Blackstone to Buy GSO Capital

Joseph McCafferty — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Blackstone Group said it will pay as much as $930 million to acquire GSO Capital Partners, a fund managerspecializing in leveraged finance, and said it would buy back up to $500million in shares.

“The combination of GSO’sbusinesses with our existing corporate debt operations will produce one of thelargest credit platforms in the alternative asset management business, with over $21billion of total assets under management,” said Blackstone Chairman and CEOStephen Schwarzman in a statement “Given the current dislocation in the credit markets, this is anideal time to create a more powerful, diversified platform from which to growBlackstone’s business.”

Blackstone said the purchase pricewill consist of cash and Blackstone Holdings units currently valued at $620million to be transferred at closing, plus a purchase price of up to $310million to be paid over the next five years contingent upon the realization ofspecified earnings targets over that period. In addition, compensatory paymentsmay be paid based on vesting and performance.

GSO Capital, a New York hedge fund that invests inleveraged loans and distressed investments, had $8 billion in assets undermanagement as of May, when Merrill Lynch Co. announced it agreed to purchase aminority stake in the firm for an undisclosed price.

The firm was founded in 2005 bythree former Credit Suisse employees, including Bennett Goodman, managingpartner of the alternatives division at Credit Suisse, and Douglas Ostrover,chairman of Credit Suisse’s leveraged finance group.