Blackstone braves frigid debt financing market with $7.7bn Emerson unit deal
Blackstone has agreed to buy a majority stake in Emerson Electric’s climate technologies business for $7.7bn, a deal that will accelerate the industrial conglomerate’s restructuring and was arranged at a time when debt financing had largely seized up.
The US private equity group, alongside sovereign wealth funds Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Singapore’s GIC, will buy a 55 per cent stake in the unit, which is valued at $14bn in total.
Emerson, founded in St Louis, Missouri, in the 1890s, is selling business lines to strategic buyers and private equity firms as part of a broader corporate restructuring. It will receive $9.5bn in cash from the sale — $4.4bn of it from Blackstone and the remainder from debt financing sources — that chief executive Lal Karsanbhai said would be used to invest in growth projects.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Kaye Wiggins
