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    Boeing Will Sell Its Digital Businesses for $10 Billion

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    The deal, with the private equity firm Thoma Bravo, will help the struggling aerospace manufacturer pay down debt and streamline its operations.Boeing on Tuesday announced that it would sell a handful of navigation, flight planning and other businesses for more than $10.5 billion as the company works to refocus on manufacturing planes and other aircraft.The company, which also wants to reduce its large debt, said it would sell four businesses from a digital unit to Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm specializing in software. Those include Jeppesen, which provides navigational charts and information to pilots, and ForeFlight, an app that helps plan flights and monitor weather.“This transaction is an important component of our strategy to focus on core businesses, supplement the balance sheet and prioritize the investment grade credit rating,” Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s chief executive, said in a statement.The company said that it expected to close the all-cash deal by the end of the year. The digital unit that houses those businesses employs about 3,900 people, though some of the unit will remain at Boeing. The company employed about 172,000 people as of the start of the year.Mr. Ortberg, who joined the company last summer, made streamlining Boeing’s operations a strategic goal as he tries to address concerns about the quality of the company’s planes that were raised after a panel blew off a 737 Max plane during a January 2024 flight near Portland, Ore.No one was seriously injured in that incident, but it renewed worries about Boeing’s planes several years after two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019. Safety and quality issues have stymied Boeing’s commercial plane production in recent years. Then last fall, production of the 737 Max, Boeing’s most popular commercial plane, came to a near standstill during a two-month worker strike.In January, Mr. Ortberg said that the company had resumed production of the Max, and was making more than 20 of those planes per month as well as five of the larger 787 Dreamliners.That is well below the goal the company had set before last year’s panel incident of delivering 50 of its 737s and 10 of its 787s per month. Boeing has about 5,500 outstanding commercial plane orders, valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. More

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      Trump Set to Meet With Top Aides to Decide TikTok’s Fate

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      President Trump plans to meet with top White House officials on Wednesday to discuss a proposal that could secure TikTok’s future in the United States, two people familiar with the plans said.Mr. Trump will consider a proposal for a new ownership structure for the popular video app, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance. Lawmakers and other U.S. officials have argued that the app’s ties to China raise national security concerns, and a federal law that was passed last year requires TikTok to change its ownership or face a ban in the United States. The latest deadline for that ban is Saturday.The meeting is set to include Vice President JD Vance, whom Mr. Trump tapped to find an arrangement to save the popular app early in February, and other top officials, the two people said on the condition of anonymity. The new ownership structure, they said, could include Blackstone, the private equity giant, and Oracle, the technology company.The meeting is another twist in the long national saga of TikTok, which surged in popularity in the United States despite sustained and deep scrutiny in Washington and state capitals. Mr. Trump, who made repeated assurances that he wants to save the app, extended the deadline for a deal in January and suggested that he might do so again if a suitable plan was not reached by early this month.TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment.It is not clear that the kind of deal under discussion would comply with the law, which calls for no more than 20 percent of TikTok or its parent company to be owned by people or companies in so-called foreign adversary countries, a list that includes China.The law also bars a new entity from working with ByteDance to operate its video-recommendation technology or creating a data-sharing agreement.Mr. Trump suggested last week that he might relax upcoming tariffs on China in exchange for the country’s support of a deal.TikTok has maintained that it is not for sale, in part, it says, because the Chinese government would block a deal. More

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      Trump Wants to Kill Carried Interest. Wall Street Will Fight to Keep It.

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      President Trump has been trying to eliminate the tax loophole, which benefits Wall Street, but Congressional Republicans may stand in the way.Nearly a month has passed since President Trump last spoke publicly of his desire to kill the carried interest loophole. (Yes, we know, some of you don’t consider it a “loophole.”) And yet the private equity industry, which stands to lose big if the president upends the tax break, is still bracing for a fight.This is the biggest challenge to the provision since it was nearly neutered three years ago under former President Joe Biden, Grady McGregor writes for DealBook.A reminder: the carried interest rule means that executives at hedge funds and P.E. and venture capital firms pay roughly 20 percent tax on their profits, a rate that’s so low it’s drawn criticism from Warren Buffett and from progressive senators like Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.One Washington lawyer described the lobbying effort to DealBook as “significant,” a sign of the escalating stakes.Consider what’s happened in the past month: The American Investment Council, the private equity lobbying group, is reportedly circulating memos on Capitol Hill reminding lawmakers that private equity is a jobs creator. Venture capitalists, seemingly omnipresent in Trump’s Washington, grumble that they have to keep returning to Congress to “educate lawmakers” about the rule’s benefits. So-called free market groups, meanwhile, have banded together to ask Congress to maintain the status quo.“They’ll fight tooth-and-nail on any sort of change,” said Jessica Millett, a tax partner at Hogan Lovells.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Remembering David Bonderman, a Private Equity Pioneer

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      A former lawyer, he cofounded the giant investment firm TPG and became known for complex deals that remade corporate America. He died on Wednesday at 82.David Bonderman, a founder of TPG, in 2018. “He built and led an impressive firm,” David Solomon of Goldman Sachs said of Bonderman.Stephen B. Morton/Associated PressRemembering BondoDavid Bonderman, a corporate lawyer who co-founded the giant investment firm TPG and helped transform private equity into a multitrillion-dollar industry that reshaped Wall Street, died on Wednesday morning. He was 82.Bonderman — Bondo to his friends — became a private equity pioneer, leading big and complex takeovers that saw corporate titans go public, and whose success helped persuade publicly traded companies to adopt his industry’s tactics, DealBook’s Michael de la Merced writes.Bonderman’s entry into private equity was by happenstance. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he taught law and then worked as a civil rights lawyer for the Justice Department. He went on to join the Washington law firm Arnold & Porter. Among his achievements there was persuading the Supreme Court to overturn an insider-trading conviction of Raymond Dirks, a securities analyst turned whistle-blower.In the mid-1980s, Bonderman was approached by Robert Bass, the Texas oil magnate, about helping run his family office. Bonderman said that he had never invested professionally before, but Bass told him that he hadn’t either.Bonderman and a colleague in the family office, Jim Coulter, founded what became TPG in 1993. By then, the two had made their names by buying Continental out of bankruptcy and turning around the embattled airline. (Emblematic of their approach: They FedExed undesirable food from the plane to Continental’s C.E.O., telling him it needed improving.)They joined a small group of financiers who turned leveraged buyouts from a cottage industry into a Wall Street behemoth, borrowing money to buy, restructure and flip big businesses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Motel 6 Is Sold to Oyo, an Indian Hotel Company Expanding in the U.S.

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      A roadside chain for more than 50 years, Motel 6 was owned by Blackstone, the private equity giant. Oyo will pay $525 million in an all-cash deal.Motel 6, the budget hotel chain that has lined American highways for decades, will be sold to Oyo, an India-based hotel operator, the companies announced on Friday.Blackstone, the private equity giant and the owner of Motel 6’s parent company, said the transaction would be an all-cash deal for $525 million. The deal is expected to close before the end of the year, and would include the chain’s offshoot hotel brand, Studio 6.Oyo expanded into the United States in 2019, and has recently ramped up efforts to expand further. It currently operates more than 300 hotels domestically. The company, which specializes in budget hotels and proudly describes itself as “a start-up,” had received a large investment from SoftBank. But some troubling incidents in India in recent years raised questions about some of its business practices.Motel 6 was founded in 1962 in Santa Barbara, Calif., and has been an indelible part of Americana for its basic accommodations. The Motel 6 name originally came from the company’s offering of an all-cash $6-a-night rate. Motel 6 and Studio 6 currently have roughly 1,500 hotels across the United States and Canada, Blackstone said.Gautam Swaroop, the chief executive of Oyo International, praised Motel 6’s “strong brand recognition, financial profile and network in the U.S.” He added, “This acquisition is a significant milestone for a start-up company like us to strengthen our international presence.”Blackstone purchased Motel 6 in 2012 for $1.9 billion.“This transaction is a terrific outcome for investors and is the culmination of an ambitious business plan that more than tripled our investors’ capital and generated over $1 billion in profit over our hold period,” Rob Harper, a senior managing director at Blackstone, said in a statement. More

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      The N.F.L. May Soon Welcome a New Kind of Owner

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      At a meeting next week, team owners are expected to approve rules that would allow private equity firms to invest in their franchises.For more than a century, National Football League owners have been an exclusive club. With rules that place tough restrictions on who is allowed to buy teams — and how those purchases can be financed — only the extremely wealthy can afford to join. Now they’re on the cusp of admitting a new kind of member.At a meeting next week in Eagan, Minn., N.F.L. owners are expected to approve rules that would allow certain private equity firms to buy as much as 10 percent of a team.The move would help owners solve a liquidity problem. As team valuations have soared — the Washington Commanders sold for $6.05 billion last year — the number of potential buyers has fallen. Finding limited partners has also become more difficult because they have no voting rights yet must tie up tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. Allowing investments from private equity could make it easier to put together a deal.The N.F.L. would be the last major sports league to allow private equity firms to become minority owners, and its approach is more conservative than leagues like the National Basketball Association, which allows private equity firms to own up to 30 percent of a team. If the new rules pass, only a handful of anointed private equity firms will be able to invest in teams.Who’s in? The N.F.L. has whittled the potential list of permitted private equity investors to just a handful of firms. They include firms that focus on sports, like Arctos Partners and Dynasty Equity, as well as larger firms like Blackstone, CVC Capital Partners and Carlyle Group, which expanded its sports with its recent purchase of the women’s soccer team Seattle Reign F.C. The firms were reported earlier by Sportico.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blackstone Chief Stephen Schwarzman Says He Will Back Trump

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      Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, said he would back former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 election, a reversal from his call for a “new generation of leaders” after the midterm elections.“The dramatic rise of antisemitism has led me to focus on the consequences of upcoming elections with greater urgency,” Mr. Schwarzman, who is Jewish, said in a statement on Friday.He also said that he was backing Mr. Trump because he believed “our economic, immigration and foreign policies are taking the country in the wrong direction.”Mr. Schwarzman, a lifelong Republican and megadonor to the party, had stuck by Mr. Trump after his defeat in 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, but turned away from him after many of the candidates Mr. Trump had handpicked lost their midterm races in 2022.Days after the party’s disappointing performance then, Mr. Schwarzman vowed to support a new candidate in the Republican presidential primaries. But ultimately he stayed out of the primaries, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission, instead donating to Republican House and Senate candidates and the political committees backing them.On Friday, he noted that he would continue to support “Republican Senate candidates and other Republicans up and down the ticket.”He has donated tens of millions of dollars to Republican political committees in recent election cycles, including those used by Mr. Trump in the 2020 election. More

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      All the Rage in Private Equity: Mortgaging the Fund

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      A little-known financial tool was the talk of the Milken Institute’s Global Conference.At the Milken Institute’s Global Conference this week, a little-known risky financial tool became the subject of a hot debate among Wall Street titans.Many private equity firms have quietly begun mortgaging their investment funds, piling leverage upon leverage. In other words, they’re taking out loans against the businesses they’ve already taken out loans to buy.At a time when dealmakers are desperate to raise new cash after the boom of the pandemic era, this mechanism — known as a net asset value loan — is allowing them to do it overnight.More P.E. firms are using the tool as they set out to raise their next funds, especially those confronting a hurdle during a slow period for dealmaking: They have yet to return cash to the limited partners they tapped for their last round.“We’re having unprecedented pressure from our L.P.s to send them cash,” Jonathan Sokoloff, the founder Leonard Green, said onstage at the Milken conference. “We’ll send you cash any way we can.”The big debate at Milken was whether private equity firms that are solving this problem with N.A.V.s are risking their future to buy some time with investors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Deal Talks Between Paramount and Skydance Heat Up

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      David Ellison, the founder of the Skydance media company, met with Paramount’s board of directors late last month to discuss the deal.Shari Redstone is getting one step closer to selling her media empire.Paramount, home to one of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios as well as CBS and cable networks like Nickelodeon, has been discussing entering into exclusive talks with the media company Skydance for a potential deal, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions. Moving to exclusive talks would be a significant step forward in a process that has been shrouded in uncertainty for months.Whether the two sides will agree to exclusivity remains to be seen, especially with other investors still pursuing Paramount. Apollo Global Management, an investment firm with more than $500 billion under management, has submitted an $11 billion offer to acquire the Paramount movie studio. Paramount’s board of directors, though, is seeking a deal for the entire company — including its cable channels and CBS — rather than pieces.Apollo continues to evaluate what proposal might most appeal to the company’s board, two people familiar with the situation said. Byron Allen, whose Entertainment Studios owns the Weather Channel, has also expressed interest in acquiring Paramount.Ms. Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, began negotiating with Skydance to sell her stake in the company last year. She controls Paramount through National Amusements, a holding company that owns her voting stock in Paramount. Ms. Redstone has held off on a sale for years, betting that the company’s fortunes would improve as its flagship streaming service, Paramount+, gained momentum.The terms of the deal being discussed would involve Skydance’s buying National Amusements and merging with Paramount. That deal hinges on approval from Paramount’s board, which has for weeks been weighing its options with the help of advisers.Late last month, David Ellison, the tech scion who founded Skydance, met with Paramount’s board committee to discuss his vision for a deal, according to two of the people familiar with the talks. Founded in 2010, Skydance is best known for shepherding blockbusters for Paramount, including movies in the “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun” franchises.Representatives for Paramount and Skydance declined to comment, and the financial terms of the deal couldn’t be learned.Paramount’s stock has fallen 18 percent since the start of the year amid headwinds for the media industry. The company is trading at a steep discount to the combined value of Viacom and CBS, which merged to form Paramount in 2019. Paramount+ is still losing money, but its losses have slowed and it continues to add subscribers.The ratings agency S&P Global downgraded Paramount’s debt to junk last week, citing “accelerating declines” in its traditional television business and continued uncertainty in its push toward streaming. Some analysts said that ratings action might make Paramount easier to acquire, since it could circumnavigate a provision that would require a buyer to immediately pay the company’s debt. More