Does the Medline mega-deal herald the return of giant buyouts?

BUYOUT SHOPS are neck-deep in dry powder. Earlier this year the world’s private-equity firms were sitting on $1.9trn in unspent capital. This month three of the biggest, Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman, reportedly agreed to pay $34bn for control of Medline, a supplier of medical equipment. It will be the biggest leveraged buyout since the global financial crisis of 2007-09 put paid to most such debt-fuelled acquisitions.■

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Dealing with abundance”