WSJ: Wall Street Banks Prepare to Sell Billions of Dollars of X Loans [View all]

[Dennis Donovan]

WSJ - Wall Street Banks Prepare to Sell Billions of Dollars of X Loans (Free link)

Banks are hoping to sell the X debt at around 90 to 95 cents on the dollar

By Justin Baer
Alexander Saeedy
Alexa Corse
Updated Jan. 24, 2025 3:37 pm ET

Banks are getting ready to sell billions of dollars in debt borrowed by Elon Musk’s X, bringing Wall Street a step closer to exiting the nerve-racking deal that financed the social-media company’s buyout.

Morgan Stanley bankers have reached out to investors ahead of a planned sale next week of up to $3 billion of debt the bank and others such as Bank of America and Barclays lent to complete Musk’s 2022 buyout of the company then known as Twitter, people familiar with the matter said.

The banks hope to sell senior debt at 90-95 cents on the dollar, while retaining more-junior holdings, the people said. The banks just sold approximately $1 billion of debt in a private transaction to several investors, some of the people said.

The debt has been an albatross on the banks since they backed Musk’s $44 billion deal with around $13 billion in financing. The price Musk paid for Twitter was high, even at the time of his purchase, and the company’s rocky performance had knocked down the value. The deal is considered one of the worst that banks agreed to finance since the 2008 financial crisis.

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