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Wall Street banks saddled with debt from Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover of Twitter sold large chunks of the loan package to investors on Wednesday, allowing a clutch of lenders to exit one of the toughest acquisition financings in recent years.
The banks were able to sell $5.5bn of term loans, following a sale of roughly $1bn of the same debt last week, helped by booming investor interest in the assets, according to people briefed on the matter.
The offloading of the $6.5bn of debt is a pivotal moment for the banks, which had to fund Musk’s 2022 takeover themselves after his ownership of the business, now renamed X, and broader market volatility damped enthusiasm for the debt.
Banks, led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays, are now left holding a further $6bn of debt tied to the acquisition, which is considered even riskier than the loans they sold over the past week. MUFG, BNP Paribas, Mizuho and Société Générale had also participated in the deal.
BofA and Morgan Stanley declined to comment, while the five other banks did not respond to requests for comment.
This is a developing story
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