Apres la deluge

23 January 2007 By Lauren Silva

A few LBOs Cablevision, Swift Transportation, Clear Channel suggest public shareholders are demanding more and getting it. It s about time. For the past two years, private equity has reaped profits that public shareholders could have got for themselves.

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Clear Channel's largest shareholder, Fidelity Investments, has told management it will vote against the $26.7bn buyout offer, Barron's reported over the weekend. In November, the founding Mays family along with Thomas H. Lee and Bain offered $37.60 a share for Clear Channel. The bid represented a 17% premium to the undisclosed price. Fidelity owns 11% of Clear Channel. The report also said another large shareholder will join Fidelity in rejecting the bid.

The Dolans, who control the voting rights to Cablevision, offered $27 a share for the cable television company. They recently upped the bid to $30 a share, which the board subsequently rejected. Shareholders of transportation company Swift on Monday agreed to a buyout offer from an entity formed by the company's founder Jerry Moyes. The agreed offer was for $31.55 a share, a 9% premium to the previous offer of $29 a share and a 31% premium to the closing price before the initial offer. Elk Corp has been the centre of a bidding war between private equity firm Carlyle and Building Materials. Building Materials first offered $35 a share for the company in November. On Monday Carlyle offered $42 a share for the company, which represents a 67% premium to the undisturbed price.

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