Well, that didn't take long. Former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker Leon Black returns to the Cendant/NRT world by taking Realogy private. Dennis Berman and Jim Hagerty have more:
In a further sign of private equity's widening influence over the economy, buyout firm Apollo Management agreed to purchase real-estate services firm Realogy Corp. for $6.6 billion, company officials said yesterday.Black's Apollo group partnered with Cendant to create NRT some years ago. Cendant later purchased Apollo's interest. Realogy's most recent SEC filings can be found here.As the holding company for such operations as Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and the Corcoran Group, the former Cendant Corp. arm is one of the most powerful players in the U.S. residential real-estate market, with a hand in one of four brokered U.S. home sales.
That position has put Realogy in a tight bind given the faltering domestic real-estate market. The company is forecasting sharp revenue declines for the foreseeable future, a bleak outlook that has weighed on its shares since they were first offered to the public in July.
Nonetheless, Apollo is taking on a large wager -- some $2 billion of its own capital -- that real-estate sales will recover shortly and that Realogy will maintain its strong brand names. Apollo has the benefit of hyperliquid financing markets, which are backing the rest of the purchase while allowing it to assume an additional $2.4 billion or so in existing Realogy debt and other liabilities.