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Saturday, February 16, 2013

DEALBREAKER: Warren Buffett Levers His Own LBO


  • 14 Feb 2013 at 6:42 PM


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The new hotness appears to be large cash-rich companies directly providing subordinated financing for big LBOs. Microsoft bound itself to Dell via sub debt in its LBO, and now Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is doing a very odd LBO of H.J. Heinz with Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital. Heinz’s announcement of the merger is brief and dull, but Buffett has filed his commitment letter and disclosed that he will “invest $12.12 billion to acquire a package of equity securities consisting of preferred and common stock and warrants issued by Holding. The preferred stock will have a liquidation preference of $8 billion, will pay or accrue a 9% dividend, and will be redeemable at the request of Holding or Berkshire in certain circumstances.” So he’s providing $4bn of common equity and $8bn of preferred leverage. The remaining $11-ish billion of the $23-ish billion purchase price will come from 3G (equity) and from a JPM/WFC-led debt financing.
There’s a basic tactical explanation for the structure, which is that it solves for this equation:
  • Berkshire is an unlevered1 equity investor,
  • 3G is an LBO shop,
  • it’s 3G’s deal – they sourced it, they’ll operate it, they did the press conference – so 3G needs to own more than 50% of the equity,2
  • but they’re not gonna put up, like, $12 billion in equity.

So basically Buffett brings half the money and 3G brings half the money; their money is some equity and some traditional LBO debt, while Buffett’s is some equity and some traditional Buffetty high-coupon preferred. And warrants. Always warrants.
The result is that this ends up a pretty heavily levered buyout; LTM EBITDA is just over $2bn, there’s $5bn of debt now, and DealBook says that could rise to $10bn. Add $8bn of pref and you’re 9x levered through the pref, versus under 6x for the average 2012 LBO.3 I see Heinz 5-year CDS moving from low 40s yesterday to high 170s today, with the 10-year at like 255.4
The theme of companies with piles of cash deciding to play in subordinated high-yield fixed-income securities is odd on the surface, but makes a lot of sense. If you’re managing Microsoft’s or Berkshire’s cash, what can you do? Banks are terrifying, and in the capital markets yields are lowcovenants are lite. Subordinated fixed-income investments in companies you know well – and, in the case of Heinz, where you’re also investing in the common – provide yield and let you monitor your investment closely. Which in turn might let you stretch a bit more on the leverage you’re willing to provide – and might make the buyers of the senior debt a bit more comfortable that it’ll get paid back. Why wouldn’t you want to disintermediate banks and bond markets this way?5


Posted by Darren Rickard at 9:17 AM
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