Musk’s Twitter takeover worst buyout for banks since financial crisis, WSJ says

The $13B Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has become the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Alexander Saeedy and Dana Mattioli of The Wall Street Journal report. The seven banks involved in the deal lent the money to Musk’s holding company to take the social media platform private in 2022. Banks that provide loans for takeovers generally sell the debt quickly to other investors to get it off their balance sheets, but they have been unable to offload this debt without incurring major losses due to X’s weak financial performance. The banks involved in the deal include Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of America (BAC), Barclays (BCS), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (MUFG), BNP Paribas (BNPQY), Mizuho (MFG) and Societe Generale (SCGLY).