Insight Communications Sale Off the Table

Carlyle Group Not Satisfied with Bids

By Jon Hemingway -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/10/2007 10:08:00 PM

The sale of Insight Communications will not happen anytime soon as The Carlyle Group has pulled it off the table, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

Carlyle, which took Insight private in 2005, canned the sale after apparently receiving some underwhelming bids. According to the article, the bids Carlyle did receive were under $3 billion and about $200 million short of expectations.

Carlyle would not comment on the canceled sale. Officials at Insight were not available for comment.

The market for buyouts is tight because the ability to raise funds in the debt markets to finance deals remains limited and expensive for borrowers. Skittish investors are steering clear of risky debt, and many corporate bond and loan deals have been shelved, creating a traffic jam in those markets and stalling some merger-and-acquisition transactions.

Since the onset of the credit crunch in July, several media-related buyouts have either been pulled or stuck in limbo. Broadcaster Nexstar Communications and U.K. cable company Virgin Media put themselves up for sale earlier in the year, only to shelve the plans due to the market turmoil. Meanwhile, deals for Cablevision Systems, Intelsat and Tribune are stuck in a queue of borrowers looking to tap the debt markets in the second half of the year and into 2008.