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☆ Winn-Dixie Owner Southeastern Grocers Weighs a Sale
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Jaewon Kang | Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Southeastern Grocers, the operator of Winn-Dixie and other grocery stores, is in talks with prospective buyers. Southeastern Grocers Inc. is exploring a sale, said people familiar with the matter, about a year after the supermarket operator canceled its plans to go public. The Florida-based operator of Winn-Dixie and Harveys grocery stores is in talks with prospective buyers, some of the people said.

☆ Walgreens Unit Close to Roughly $9 Billion Deal With Summit Health
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Walgreens appears to have pre-empted a sale process for Summit Health that was set to kick off next year. A unit of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. is nearing a deal to combine with a big owner of medical practices and urgent-care centers in a transaction worth roughly $9 billion including debt, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest in a string of acquisitions by big consumer-focused companies aiming to delve deeper into medical care. The drugstore giant’s primary-care-center subsidiary, Village Practice Management, would combine with Summit Health, the parent company of CityMD urgent-care centers, in an agreement that could be reached as early as Monday, the people said.

☆ Walgreens Unit to Buy Summit Health
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Walgreens shares rose after its primary-care-center subsidiary agreed to acquire Summit Health, the parent company of CityMD urgent-care centers. A unit of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. struck a deal to combine with a big owner of medical practices and urgent-care centers in a transaction worth roughly $9 billion including debt, the latest in a string of acquisitions by big consumer-focused companies aiming to delve deeper into medical care. The drugstore giant’s primary-care-center subsidiary, Village Practice Management, agreed to acquire Summit Health, the parent company of CityMD urgent-care centers, the companies said Monday, confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal.

☆ Premarket stocks: Did Jerome Powell just bust the market rally?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

London CNN Business —Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has the power to make or break markets these days. “Essentially, it killed the pivot dreams.”Economic data, particularly for the labor market, still looks relatively strong. “Big advertisers that we traditionally get spend from are not spending this quarter,” Roku (ROKU) CEO Anthony Wood told analysts after the company reported earnings on Wednesday. Ford saw its October US sales slump 10% over the last year as the company continued to battle supply chain difficulties. In March, the company said it would ship some vehicles without some less crucial computer chips and add them later.

☆ Blackstone, Emerson Electric Strike $14 Billion Buyout Deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Laura Cooper | Miriam Gottfried | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The deal is the latest in a string of divestitures by St. Louis-based Emerson Electric, which took part in a Seoul exhibition earlier this year. Emerson Electric Co. is selling a majority stake in its climate-technologies business to Blackstone Inc. in a transformational deal for the industrial company that would value the unit at $14 billion including debt and mark the biggest private-equity buyout in months at a time when such activity has been choked off by market volatility. The deal, expected to be announced Monday, would give Blackstone a 55% stake in the unit, which sells compressors and other HVAC products and services used in commercial and residential heating and cooling as well as cold storage, executives from both companies said. Emerson would retain a 45% stake.

Banks have started to send $13 billion in cash backing Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter according to people familiar with the matter, the latest sign the $44 billion deal for the social-media company is on track to close by the end of the week after months of twists and turns. Mr. Musk late Tuesday sent a so-called borrowing notice to the banks that agreed to provide him with the debt for the purchase, one of the people said. That kicked off a process that is currently under way by which banks will deposit funds they are on the hook for into an escrow account after hammering out final details of the debt contracts, the people said.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Debt to Be Held by Banks Amid Turbulent Markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Laura Cooper | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Banks that committed to help finance Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter Inc. plan to hold all $13 billion of debt backing the deal rather than syndicate it out, according to people familiar with the matter, in another blow to a market that serves as a crucial source of corporate funding. The banks decided to park the debt on their balance sheets to avoid selling it at a loss to bond and loan fund managers, who have grown increasingly skittish amid rising market turmoil, the people said.

☆ Vista Equity Nears Roughly $4.5 Billion Deal for Cybersecurity Provider
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners is near a deal to purchase the cybersecurity provider KnowBe4 for about $4.5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, a rare leveraged buyout as financing for such deals has become harder to secure. The deal, which is expected to be unveiled Wednesday assuming the talks don’t drag out or fall apart, values KnowBe4 shares at nearly $25 each. The stock closed at $21.59 on Tuesday.

☆ Vista Equity Strikes Deal to Acquire Cybersecurity Provider
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

KnowBe4, based in Clearwater, Fla., is a platform for security-awareness training and simulated phishing. Private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners has struck a deal to purchase cybersecurity provider KnowBe4 for $4.6 billion in an increasingly rare leveraged buyout as financing for such deals has become harder to secure. The company unveiled the news on Wednesday, confirming an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal.

☆ Humana, CVS Circle Cano Health as Potential Buyers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Laura Cooper | Dana Cimilluca | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Humana has a right of first refusal on any Cano sale, part of an agreement that was originally struck in 2019. Humana and CVS Health are circling Cano Health according to people familiar with the situation, as healthcare heavyweights scramble to snap up primary-care providers. The talks are serious and a deal to purchase Cano could be struck in the next several weeks, assuming the negotiations don’t fall apart, some of the people said. Cano shares, which had been down nearly 7%, turned positive and closed up 32% after The Wall Street Journal reported on the talks with Humana and other unnamed parties, giving the company a market value of roughly $4 billion.

☆ Humana, Other Potential Buyers Circle Cano Health
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Laura Cooper | Dana Cimilluca | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Humana has a right of first refusal on any Cano sale, part of an agreement that was originally struck in 2019. Humana and other possible buyers are circling Cano Health according to people familiar with the situation, as healthcare heavyweights scramble to snap up primary-care providers. The talks are serious and a deal to purchase Cano could be struck in the next several weeks, assuming the negotiations don’t fall apart, some of the people said.Cano shares, which had been down nearly 7%, turned positive and were up 42% after The Wall Street Journal reported on the talks, giving the company a market value of nearly $5 billion.

☆ Futures steady after Fed-driven selloff
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A Wall St. street sign is seen near the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., September 17, 2019. The three main indexes finished more than 1.7% down on Wednesday, with the Dow (.DJI) posting its lowest close since June 17. The Nasdaq (.IXIC) and S&P 500 (.SPX), respectively, ended at their lowest point since July 1 and June 30. Worries about the impact of aggressive interest rate hikes on the economy and corporate profits have left the benchmark S&P 500 less that 4% away from its mid-June low, its weakest point of the year. ET, Dow e-minis were up 147 points, or 0.49%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 17.25 points, or 0.45%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 48.75 points, or 0.42%.

☆ Citrix Debt Deal Prices With Large Losses For Banks
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Investment banks including Bank of America Credit Suisse Group and Goldman Sachs Group are on track to collectively lose more than $500 million on debt backing the largest U.S. leveraged buyout of the year after it was sold to investors at a steep discount. The $4 billion in bonds backing the $16.5 billion take-private deal for Citrix Systems were auctioned off Tuesday at a 16% discount, netting around $500 million in losses alone for underwriting banks, according to people familiar with the matter and pricing term sheets viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

☆ Anxious investors are piling into hedge funds
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Julia Horowitz | Cnn Business | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

London (CNN Business) For years, the climate for hedge funds was tough. That's boosting interest in hedge funds, through which professional investors try to beat the market by deploying less-conventional approaches. Investors trying to capitalize on turmoil in commodity markets have done particularly well, according to Robert Sears, chief investment officer at Capital Generation Partners, which invests in hedge funds for wealthy families. "Until we get into the cycle of earnings going down and the Federal Reserve starting to ease policy, really you're set for an environment when hedge funds should do quite well," Sears told me. Investors see an 80% probability that the Fed will hike interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday.

Heard on the StreetAmazon and other companies are trying to disrupt the giant, inefficient U.S. healthcare sector. They’ve made little headway but a crop of upstarts is offering industry giants a chance to buy their way in.

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