Elon Musk’s $43bn bid to take Twitter private is struggling to draw interest from several large institutions with the financial firepower to pull off such a large leveraged buyout in part due to concerns over whether the social media group can become more profitable.
Blackstone Group, Vista Equity Partners and Brookfield Asset Management are among some of the biggest private equity industry groups who have decided against providing an equity cheque for a buyout, people familiar with their thinking told the Financial Times.
Musk or any other bidder wanting to take Twitter private would need well over $20bn of new equity to complete the deal, with the remainder of the financing coming from debt or the participation of existing investors who would swap their publicly traded stakes for an interest in the private company.