Toshiba walks from $20bn+ buyout deal, Georgian seeks $1.5bn for blind-pool strategy to back prized assets

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The Wire

Dec. 8, 2021

Toshiba walks from $20bn+ buyout deal, Georgian seeks $1.5bn for blind-pool strategy to back prized assets

The one that got away: A potentially massive buyout deal involving Japanese multinational conglomerate Toshiba Corp isn’t going to happen, sources told Reuters this week. The company walked away from offers made by private equity firms “at a substantial premium.”

Toshiba also walked away from advanced talks for a minority investment from Brookfield Asset Management, the report said.

The handful of PE firms that were talking with Toshiba about a potential take-private acquisition include KKR and Bain Capital. A prior story also identified Blackstone as a suitor.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported CVC Capital Partners made a bid that valued the conglomerate at more than $20 billion. That bid, dismissed by Toshiba, approaches the roughly $23 billion deal value attributed to one of the PE firms cited in the Reuters story. Read it here on PE Hub.

Holding assets longer: Only months after closing a major GP-led secondaries deal, Georgian unveiled a blind-pool strategy to continue investing in its starriest software assets, sources told Buyouts.

The strategy is embodied in Georgian Alignment Fund II, an offering targeted to raise $1.5 billion, according to a report from MassPRIM.

Fund II, sources said, is intended to build on the $1.1 billion GP-led deal, closed in March, which moved four portfolio companies out of older Georgian funds and into a continuation vehicle. That process allowed LPs to cash out of their interests in the assets, or roll their stakes into the continuation vehicle, now dubbed Georgian Alignment Fund I.

Fund II, however, will not operate like Fund I, sources said. While it has the same goal of creating more time and money to back especially high-growth software companies, the blind-pool strategy is a new strategy that may take different approaches to different assets.

Georgian launched the blind-pool vehicle in tandem with a sixth flagship offering.

Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub ...

Also of note (may require subscriptions)

"Consumer-focused private-equity firm L Catterton is coming back to the fundraising circuit seeking $6.5 billion for its new buyout fund and $1.25 billion for its latest growth fund." (WSJ Pro)

"'Where has that money gone?' LV members question private equity sale as deadline looms" (Financial Times)

"Veritas Capital is exploring a sale of Cotiviti Corp. that could value the health-care information and analytics company at more than $15 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter." (Bloomberg)