DealZone

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If a deal can’t get done with the backing of Canada’s pension fund and capitalism’s mightiest bank, then the leveraged buyout market would truly be dead.

So it is with limited fanfare that DealZone welcomes the buyout of IMS Health by Canada’s public pension plan and Goldman Sachs as a sign of the market’s return to health. Green shoots in the LBO patch are hardly growing all jack-and-the-beanstalk, but putting together $4 billion for the prescription drug sales data provider is not just ice on the moon either.

Excluding debt, the $22-a-share cash deal is the biggest leveraged buyout since Bristol-Myers Squibb sold its ConvaTec unit to Avista Capital and Nordic Capital just over a year ago for $4.1 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

Financing markets and general optimism have improved from the nadir of the crisis, and debt, if you can find it, is hardly expensive, with core rates at zero. But $4 billion pales in comparison with strategic deals in the health space this year, such as Wyeth’s $68 billion union with Pfizer.

It is safe to say, though, that had the IMS deal foundered, it would have been a far worse signal for LBOs than its success means for the relative health of the business.

CIT Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek plans to retire at the end of the year, but the company could well be bankrupt before it concludes its search for a replacement.

Dan Wilchins and Paritosh Bansal report that bondholders are showing little interest in exchanging their debt for equity in the troubled lender to small- and medium-sized businesses. Earlier this month it said it was looking for investors to approve a large debt exchange that would reduce its borrowings, or to approve a prepackaged bankruptcy. CIT listed $71 billion of assets on its balance sheet as of the end of June.

Peek, formerly an executive at Merrill Lynch, has led CIT since 2003. He has been widely criticized for being slow to recognize the extent to which the credit crunch would stress the company’s business model by lifting its borrowing costs. If a white knight is anywhere in sight, he better have something more convincing to sell bondholders than green shoots and the promise of a better tomorrow, as about $3 billion of debt comes due in the fourth quarter.

Unnerved by sagging markets, storied private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts appears to be thinking of putting off its New York listing. The original plan was to buy its Amsterdam-listed fund and parlay it into a New York-listed entity.

Now, having watched Blackstone‘s stock tumble a gut-wrenching 68 percent since it went public two years ago, we hear KKR is leaning toward buying out the Dutch fund, known as KPE, but putting off the NYSE listing.

Separating the two plans would give KKR, co-founded by “buyout king” Henry Kravis (pictured left), the option of buying its Amsterdam-listed fund without the pressure of having to list at a difficult time to go public. The company could later decide to list under a different method if it desired, Megan Davies reports.