Are Big Buyout Deals in Trouble?

The days when companies could dream of landing deals as big as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’s legendary $31 billion takeover of RJR Nabisco may have since passed into history, Breakingviews writes. The reason? The fuel needed to power such efforts — cheap financing — has finally dried up.

That has led to failure, like the attempted $18 billion buyout of Tennessee’s HCA, or to deals more expensive than originally imagined, such as Toys R Us having to pay 50 basis points more for its recent loan than it wanted, taking cuts out of its private equity owners’ profits.