kkr/goldman spinning the txu deal as a "green deal"

read here more details on the deal/biggest buyout ever / hier mehr zum deal
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/2007/02/next-biggest-buyout-everkkr-may-buy-txu.html

mhhhh, i´m having trouble giving goldman and kkr the "benefit of the doubt" that they have mutated to environmentalists. i look at this as an attempt to avoid the massive investments involved with the plan to build the coal power plants

irgendwie habe ich leichte probleme im zweifel für kkr und gs zu sein. mir scheint der gedanke das die beiden plötzlich zu umweltaktivisten mutiert sind zu abwegig. ich sehe es eher als versuch sich um die nötigen investitionen für die kohlekraftwerke zu drücken (über 10 mrd$)

"In 2006, TXU expects to invest $2.6 billion in capital expenditures, roughly 100 percent of expected net income, in order to improve reliability and customer service and meet the urgent and growing electricity needs of Texas. For 2006 through 2010, TXU plans to invest more than $17 billion in capital expenditures, more than 135 percent of expected net income"

it should be clear that when this investment plan stays in tact there would be almost no room for kkr to load up more debt to finance the usual "special dividend"..... and make the numbers/deal work

es sollte ziemlich klar sein das sich der deal nur rechnet wenn schnell hohe schulden aufgenommen werden können und die übliche "sonderdividende" ausgezahlt werden kann.

looks like the spin doctors have made a comeback......

die spin doctors feiern ein comeback......

but when the consequence of the takeover would be that more "green" power would be used and emissions could be avoided....i´m in danger of becoming a "private equity fan" :-)

but to be honest i think with this number in mind

"In 2000, North America had coal reserves of around 286 billion short tons, about 96 percent of which were located in the United States. North American coal reserves account for around 26 percent of total world coal reserves"

it is very hard to believe that the us would not tap into this massive resource. but there is always hope.....

wenn dieser übernahmewahn letztendlich dazu führt das mehr "grüne" energie und weniger emissionen produziert werden laufe ich am ende noch gefahr ein "private equity fan" zu werden... :-)

wenn man sich nüchtern betrachtet die riseigen kohlereserven der der usa und auch in texas ansieht beschleichen mich doch zwiefel ob dieses tatsächlich eintreffen wird. aber die hoffnung stirbt bekanntlich zuletzt......

In Big Buyout, Utility to Limit New Coal Plants / NYT

Under a proposed $45 billion buyout by a team of private equity firms, the TXU Corporation, a Texas utility that has long been the bane of environmental groups, will abandon plans to build 8 of 11 coal plants and commit to a broad menu of environmental measures....


The roster of commitments came through an unusual process in which the equity firms asked two prominent environmental groups what measures could be taken to win their support. The result is an about-face from the company’s earlier approach to climate-change issues, and includes a goal of returning the carbon-dioxide emissions by TXU to 1990 levels by 2020.




Environmental groups said yesterday that they had never known of a financial deal with such an ambitious built-in environmental component.

Two private equity firms, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company and the Texas Pacific Group, have proposed to buy TXU in what would become the largest leveraged buyout ever.


The transaction will be put to the TXU board for a vote on Sunday.

People involved in the negotiations said that
Goldman Sachs, an adviser and lender to the buyers, helped broker peace with environmental groups and sought their support for the transaction. Goldman Sachs has been one of the most aggressive firms on Wall Street about taking action on climate change; the company sends its bankers home at night in hybrid limousines. ( i think we can expand this cartoon to other sectors as well / real estate, investmentbanks, pe etc / denke diesen cartoon kann man locker auf andere branchen wie die immobilienbranche, investmentbanken, pe etc.

For the investor groups, the effort was as much about making a sound business decision to ensure the deal’s completion as it was about any environmental concerns.

By bringing the environmental groups into the process, the buyers may have helped avert years of costly litigation over emissions from their plants. But they may also have raised new questions about how they will meet the energy needs that TXU intended to address by building all 11 plants; the company is said to be examining ways to expand in cleaner forms of energy......

“We have history’s largest purchase of a power company, with the new owners wanting to move the company in a direction that is consistent with a world that takes global warming seriously,” said David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council, ....

The commitments come at a time of uncertainty for utilities that are considering building coal-fired plants. They do not know if such plants will be grandfathered by Congress and excluded from future restrictions on carbon-dioxide emissions, or whether anything they build now will have to operate in a starkly different regulatory environment. (watch the deposits and i´ll bet that lobbyist are working overtime to exclude coal from the emisions.....bei den massiven vorkommen sind die lobbyisten sicher hart am arbeiten um für kohle ne sonderregelung zu finden)


TXU (or better kkr thats the 10q filing from txu in november http://biz.yahoo.com/e/061109/txu10-q.html / wohl eher kkr. lest das txu filing vom novmber) will discard plans to build eight of 11 proposed new coal plants, which would have been major new sources of emissions. Those plants — which would have added more than 9,000 megawatts of new capacity, the equivalent of 3.5 percent of the nation’s current coal-fired power — had been part of a planned $10 billion expansion of coal-fired electricity.

TXU, which is based in Dallas, also intends to expand the renewable energy portion of its portfolio and reduce or offset its emissions significantly, said people who were familiar with the plans. .......

.... Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the investment team was essentially asking “what would it take” to gain environmentalists’ support.

But people familiar with the investors’ thinking took pains to say that the investors brought the measures to the environmental groups, and were not acting out of any fear of the groups’ potential to wage a legal and public-relations campaign against them.

but lets hope that in the end "mother earth" can benefit ....

bleibt zu hoffen das die umwelt unterm strich davon profitieren kann