Johnson: 100% debt-financed Park Communications deal generated $200M profit on zero equity
Mark Johnson · Innovation in Private Markets 2: Mark Johnson – New Leaders in Private Equity at Astra (Capital Allocators, EP.193) · May 6, 2021 · at 3:56
Mark Johnson, co-founder of Astra Capital Management, discusses his early career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch and the deal that demonstrated to him the value-creation power of financial leverage.
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“I started in investment banking, and then while I was at Merrill Lynch, I worked on a deal called Park Communications. It was an odd communications Broadcasting company that was owned by two entrepreneurs with 100% debt, and we were in the process of refinancing that debt package to the tune of making those two founders two hundred million dollars of profit with zero dollars invested.”
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