In the second biggest private equity buyout, behind the $45bn paid for the US utility firm TXU, private equity company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR)

has completed its $26-billion takeover of one of the biggest processors of credit card payments, First Data Corp.

For some time the deal was said to have been in jeopardy as the banks that underwrote this deal had done so before the credit crunch caused by the spectre of the collapse of the US sub prime mortgage market.

These banks had originally planned to parcel out the debt among other banks. But, with the turmoil several banks with large exposures in such debt found themselves laden with an unwanted stock of debt of questionable value, underwritten or backed by US mortgage financiers in the US, and therefore had been unwilling to stretch themselves any further.

As it had become difficult for banks to spread the huge cost of big acquisition deals around, it had slowed down the pace of new private equity deals.

There had also been some concern about existing deals running into problems, the first of which was First Data, but the completion of the deal will go some way to calming those fears.
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