Sallie Mae Sues to Force a Buyout

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MICHAEL J. de la MERCED
Published: October 9, 2007, The New York Times

The SLM Corporation, parent of the student lender Sallie Mae, filed a lawsuit yesterday against a group of firms that had agreed to buy it for $25 billion but now are trying to renegotiate the deal.
The suit, filed last night in Delaware Chancery Court, comes one day ahead of a self-imposed deadline by the buyers to reach a new agreement. Failing that, the buyers — the private equity firms J. C. Flowers & Company and Friedman Fleischer & Lowe and the banks JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America — were prepared to walk away. Under the terms of the deal negotiated in April, the firms would pay a $900 million breakup fee.
The lawsuit is the harshest turn yet in one of the most bitter buyout fights this year. Buyers in other deals have clashed privately with their targets over price and terms of the acquisitions, but Sallie Mae and its suitors have been unafraid to slug it out in public.