Largest LBO In History Looks Like Black Eye For PE Industry
(This story first appeared in Buyouts magazine, a peHUB sister publication.-Ed.) The largest buyout of all time is fast becoming an embarrassment for its investors and for the private equity industry as a whole. In the latest development, Energy Future Holdings Co. said on April 1 that it was negotiating a deal with creditors that could give it more time to pay back $20 billion of its debt. The development is the latest fissure in what increasingly looks like a gargantuan failure for the Texas utility's sponsors, led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs's buyout arm. The PE firms bought the Dallas-based energy company, formerly known as TXU, for around $45 billion in 2007. (The utility still does business under the TXU brand, among others.) Perhaps more importantly, the company's struggles come at
