Top ten deals

The biggest private equity deals of all time.


NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The first takeover of a public company by a private equity firm was in 1979, when KKR bought machine-tool maker Houdaille for $355 million. But nine of the 10 biggest deals ever are from the last three years.

(Values include assumed debt)

1. $38.9 billion - Equity Office Properties Trust

Acquirer: Blackstone

Year: 2007

Comments: A fierce bidding war drove up the price by $3 billion.

2. $32.7 billion - Hospital Corp. of America

Acquirers: Bain, KKR, Merrill Lynch

Year: 2006

Comments: The buyers, including the Frist family, paid only $5.5 billion in equity. The rest was debt.

3. $31.1 billion - RJR Nabisco

Acquirer: KKR

Year: 1989

Comments: It's the Sgt. Pepper's of PE: oft imitated but never topped_ when adjusted for inflation.

4. $27.4 billion - Harrah's Entertainment*

Acquirers: Apollo, Texas Pacific

Year: 2006

Comments: The club's $90-per-share offer was a huge 35% premium over the casino's closing stock price.

5. $25.7 billion - Clear Channel Communications*

Acquirers: Bain, Thomas H. Lee

Year: 2006

Comments: The Mays family's stake is valued at over $1 billion.

6. $21.6 billion - Kinder Morgan*

Acquirers: Carlyle, Riverstone, Goldman Sachs

Year: 2006

Comments: Goldman did the deal and earned fees from the buyers and seller.

7. $17.6 billion - Freescale Semiconductor

Acquirers: Blackstone, Carlyle, Permira, Texas Pacific

Year: 2006

Comments: U.K.-based Permira established a beachhead in U.S. megadeals.

8. $17.4 billion - Albertson's

Acquirer: Cerberus

Year 2006

Comments: Joining with CVS and SuperValu, Cerberus spurred management to go private.

9. $15.0 billion - Hertz

Acquirers: Carlyle, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Merrill Lynch

Year: 2005

Comments: Bought from Ford, then sold to the public a year later.

10. $13.9 billion - TDC

Acquirers: Apax, Blackstone, KKR, Permira, Providence

Year: 2005

Comments: The buyout of the Danish telecom is Europe's biggest private-equity deal so far.

* Deal announced, not closed. Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.