Deals
Twitter-Musk Deal Drama Is Just Beginning for Wall Street Banks
- Banks forced to lend some $13 billion of debt themselves
- Morgan Stanley provided biggest chunk at about $3.5 billion
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Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter Inc., ending months of uncertainty for Silicon Valley and shareholders. Yet for debt bankers on Wall Street, the drama is far from over, as they’ll need to convince investors that the Chief Twit’s ambitions for the company can justify its heavy debt load.
With the $44 billion deal now closed, a Morgan Stanley-led cohort that provided about $13 billion of debt financing to help fund the acquisition of Twitter is now saddled with risky loans that they never intended to keep on their books. The banks now face the unenviable task of selling it off without realizing big losses -- and that’s not going to be easy.