A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loans, along with the assets of the acquiring company. The use of debt, which normally has a lower cost of capital than equity, serves to reduce the overall cost of financing the acquisition. The cost of debt is lower because interest payments often reduce corporate income tax liability, whereas dividend payments normally do not. This reduced cost of financing allows greater gains to accrue to the equity, and, as a result, the debt serves as a lever to increase the returns to the equity. The term LBO is usually employed when a financial sponsor acquires a company. However, many corporate transactions are partially funded by bank debt, thus effectively also representing an LBO. LBOs can have many different forms such as management buyout (MBO), management buy-in (MBI), second
Los activos de la empresa adquirida a menudo se utilizan como garantía para los préstamos, junto con los activos de la empresa adquirente. El uso de la deuda, que normalmente tiene un menor coste de capital que el capital, sirve para reducir el coste total de financiación de la adquisición. El coste de la deuda es menor porque los pagos de intereses a menudo reducen la obligación de impuestos sobre la renta corporativa, mientras que los pagos de dividendos normalmente no. Este coste reducido de financiación permite que se acumulen mayores ganancias en el capital, y, como resultado, la deuda sirve como una herramienta para aumentar los retornos al capital. El término LBO se emplea generalmente cuando un patrocinador financiero adquiere una empresa. Sin embargo, muchas transacciones corporativas son parcialmente financiadas por la deuda, por lo que también representan efectivamente a muchos LBOs.