Yellow Pages Group (YPG), in conjunction with its banking syndicate, has commenced a review process to assess a possible sale.YPG has appointed Goldman Sachs JBWere to assist it in this process. Telecom sold off its directories business including Ye
Yellow Pages Group (YPG), in conjunction with its banking syndicate, has commenced a review process to assess a possible sale.
YPG has appointed Goldman Sachs JBWere to assist it in this process.
Telecom sold off its directories business including Yellow Pages in 2007 for $2.2 billion to CCMP (now Unitas Capital) and the Ontario Teachers Plan.
Unitas and Teachers funded the purchase with $1.325 billion senior debt, a $300 million subordinated bridge loan and a $175 million payment-in-kind (PIK) note.
The resulting debt burden has proved too much for the YPG, which earlier this year announced a $338 million annual loss.
Other issues have included a the rise and rise of sometime-ally, often-time competitor Google, the recession, an endless upgrade (still in the works) for the bare-bones yellow.co.nz, and a horror-show 018 offshoring effort.
On May 31, the company's CFO quit amid attempts to refinance some $1.7 billion in loans.
YPG's current owners look set to book a huge loss on any sale engineered by Goldman Sachs, and are now not looking quite so canny as 2007.
But former Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung's decision to flick off her company's directory business while the going was good is looking better and better.
MORE:
Banks fear the Yellow Peril as loan runs out
Yellow Pages CFO quits, banking talks 'constructive'
Yellow loses key director
Yellow Pages Group clocks $338m loss
