KKR Woolies bid? The Australian A lame duck chief executive, a...

KKR Woolies bid? The Australian

A lame duck chief executive, a boardroom lacking strong retail experience and a collapsing share price — all music to the ears of hungry private equity, and no ¬surprise then that Woolworths is on the menu for many offshore players that dabble in the private equity world.
But at a market capitalisation of more than $33 billion, it would be one of the biggest, if not the ¬biggest, takeover in Australian corporate history and would probably require a consortium of private equity firms and dollops of debt.
And so fresh rumours running through the market yesterday were that KKR, which in the late 1980s pulled off the then biggest deal ever when it bought RJR Nabisco for $US25bn, is now putting to¬gether a bid which might be almost ready for the Woolworths board to consider.
The deal would go something like this: KKR makes its bid, sells off struggling hardware chain Masters and Big W and then refloats part of the new, leaner Woolworths, which is squarely focused around food, grocery, convenience stores and petrol and liquor.
With the Australian dollar falling, the deal becomes cheaper by the day for KKR.