In this exclusive interview, Thomas H. Lee Partners LP co-president Scott Sperling remembers his own and the LBO industry's bitter battles with Wall Street banks in late 2007 and 2008.
Relations frayed badly then between the big LBO sponsors and the Wall Street banks that had collaborated with them in a wave of pricey, jumbo-sized LBOs before the market crashed. As the mortgage crisis deepened and the economy headed south, sponsors and banks sought any excuse to wiggle out of LBOs that stank of rot before they'd even gone through. In other cases, sponsors held banks' feet to the fire, demanding that still-pending deals go through at the enticing lending terms the banks originally had pledged, but now wished they hadn't.
