The delay in Reed Elsevier’s sale of Reed Business Information has meant the company has had to extend the deadline for refinancing half of the $4.17bn (£2.7bn) loan it used to buy data provider ChoicePoint.
According to The Telegraph, the information company financed the ChoicePoint acquisition with short-term bank facilities and was hoping to pay off part of this debt with the sale of RBI.
However, the economic crisis which has delayed the auction and seen the value of the business to slide from £1.25bn to between £650m and £850m, means that the refinancing of the loan has been put back till March 2009.
Earlier this week American asset manager Apollo Management withdrew from the auction leaving just two parties left in the bidding – ZenlickMedia and Bain Capital.
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