Corporate Law
Despite Slowdown, Dealmakers of Year Still in Business
Posted Apr 8, 2008, 12:17 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Despite a significant work slowdown that began almost exactly halfway through 2007, the nation's best dealmakers found a way to continue doing business last year when others might have been stymied.
Among them: Paul Bird of Debevoise & Plimpton closed a HD Supply buyout in late August without funding, as bank representatives boycotted the scheduled event and refused to take his phone calls, reports the American Lawyer. Another American Lawyer article names Bird in a list of the top 12 dealmakers of the year.
However, the 47-year-old Bird had anticipated problems with the HD Supply closing and planned for the situation that developed. Thus, the closing was something of a theatrical show, a "virtual close, meant to show that there was a willing buyer and a willing seller," he tells the legal publication. By showing that the buyers were united in making a good-faith attempt to close the deal, Bird put pressure on the lenders to ante up in order to avoid litigation, the legal magazine explains.
"The strategy worked," American Lawyer recounts. "A week later the deal closed--for real, this time--and was the last big private equity transaction to do so before the credit markets locked down."
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