TXU Agrees to Buyout in Largest-Ever Private Equity Deal

$45 billion just made the world a little bit cleaner and a little bit greener.

In one of the largest private equity deals in history, private equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts paid $45 billion for TXU, the largest energy provider in Texas.  (Though, really, aren’t all the energy providers in Texas the largest energy providers in Texas?  Isn’t that the very nature of Texas?)

The best part about the deal: The buyers have promised environmental groups they would cancel a slew of coal-fired power plants on the firm’s drawing boards.  Mostly because hi: it’s not the 19th century any more.

It’s a nice synthesis of awesome that the largest private equity deal also has the promise of better environmental control and quality in the long run.

According to the Washington Post, the board of TXU met last night to vote on the leveraged buyout, which would eclipse the previous record of $31.3 billion, paid for RJR Nabisco in 1989.

"Anyone doing an energy investment in today’s situation has got to be sensitive of the change in the attitudes of the culture and the change in the attitudes of the country, and particularly the attitudes of Congress," said a person involved in the negotiations who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity because the deal had not yet been announced.