Biggest Leveraged Loan of 2018 Hits Market for Reuters Buyout

(Bloomberg) -- Investors led by Blackstone Group LP will start marketing $8 billion of risky corporate loans next week to fund their buyout of Thomson Reuters Corp.'s financial-and-risk operations, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It would be the biggest leveraged loan offering of the year.

Underwriters led by Bank of America Corp. are holding investor meetings on Sept. 4 in London and Sept. 5 in New York for a seven-year $5.5 billion term loan and a $2.5 billion loan denominated in euros, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the deal is private.

The Blackstone group agreed to buy a 55 percent stake in the Reuters division in a deal valued at about $17 billion. The business -- to be called Refinitiv -- provides data, analytics and trading to Wall Street and financial professionals around the world. It doesn't include Reuters' news operation.

In addition to the term loans, the buyout financing will also include $5.5 billion in high-yield bonds, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg in February. The bond portion is expected to be split into a $3 billion secured portion and $2.5 billion unsecured slice.

Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters in providing news and information.

--With assistance from Lara Wieczezynski.

To contact the reporter on this story: Claire Boston in New York at cboston6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nikolaj Gammeltoft at ngammeltoft@bloomberg.net, Shannon D. Harrington

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