The leveraged buyout appears to be making a comeback as four private-equity firms are in the running to acquire publicly traded pharmaceutical company InVentiv Health, a source close to the situation told The Post.
According to this person, BC Partners, Genstar Capital, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe are all expected this week to submit final bids for the New Jersey-based company, whose enterprise value, defined as cash plus debt, is pegged at $1 billion.
InVentiv handles sales, staffing, marketing and patient support for larger pharmaceutical companies including Bristol-Myers and Johnson & Johnson. This is at least the second time the company has been for sale in recent years.
InVentiv, Genstar and Thomas H. Lee Partners declined comment.
The significant interest shows that in the wake of the financial crisis, an increasing number of public companies can now borrow at multiples of earnings roughly equal to their trading multiples.
So far this year, there have been 13 buyouts of publicly traded US companies, compared with seven at this time last year and 11 in 2008, according to Thomson Reuters. However, that is still well behind the 31 recorded at this time in 2007.