Buyer Beware

BUYER’S REMORSE: The N.Y. Post warns any private equity firms interested in bidding on EMI Music, “Buyer beware.” With Citigroup starting to market its newly acquired music group, and firms like KKR beginning to kick the tires, the paper reveals that nine of the 10 biggest global leveraged buyouts of media companies from 2005-’09 have been losers. Private equity firms are losing money in all but one of the large leveraged buyouts of media companies, and two of the losing investments have already gone bankrupt. "You need a good healthy economy to do well with these businesses," a pension adviser who invests in private-equity firms said. "I think private-equity firms need to understand that media is cyclical." (2/7p)