Blackstone Alliance to Buy Chip Maker for $17.6 Billion

In a rare buyout battle among the titans of private equity, the Blackstone Group has come away with a huge prize.
A Blackstone-led alliance that includes the Carlyle Group, Permira and the Texas Pacific Group announced yesterday that it had won the bidding for Freescale Semiconductor, a maker of chips for cellphones and cars, with a $17.6 billion deal. It is the largest leveraged buyout of a technology company ever, surpassing last year’s $11.3 billion buyout of SunGard Data Systems.