11 Largest Leveraged Buyouts Of All Time

A leveraged buyout is simply defined as the purchase of a controlling share in a company by its management using outside capital.

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk took billions in leveraged loans to take control of Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) with funding from banks such as Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) and Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC), marking the transaction — $44 billion — as the largest leveraged buyout of all time, by more than $12 billion as compared to TXU Energy.

Interested in learning about the others? Here is a list of the 11 largest leveraged buyouts after Twitter. 

1. TXU Energy

• Date: 2007
• Value: $32.1 billion
• Acquired by: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

2. First Data

• Date: 2007
• Value: $25.7 billion
• Acquired by: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

3. Alltel

• Date: 2007
• Value: $25.1 billion
• Acquired by: Atlantis Holdings

4. RJR Nabisco

• Date: 1988
• Value: $25.1 billion
• Acquired by: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

5. Equity Office Properties

• Date: 2006
• Value: $24.7 billion
• Acquired by: Blackstone Group

6. HJ Heinz

• Date: 2013
• Value: $23.5 billion
• Acquired by: Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital Partners

7. Heathrow Airport Holdings

• Date: 2006
• Value: $21.8 billion
• Acquired by: FGP Topco Limited

8. Dell

• Date: 2013
• Value: $21.5 billion
• Acquired by: Michael Dell and Silver Lake Management

9. Hospital Corporation of America Healthcare

• Date: 2006
• Value: $21.2 billion
• Acquired by: Hercules Acquisition

10. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.

• Date: 2007
• Value: $20.2 billion
• Acquired by: Blackstone Group

11. Alliance Boots

• Date: 2007
• Value: $19.6 billion
• Acquired by: AB Acquisitions