CNBC's Charlie Gasparino Says Home Depot (HD) & New York Times (NYT) Could Be Acquired

CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino keyed in today on 2 potential takeout candidates today.

His Street Stories Hank Greenberg may be engaged trying to buyout the ENTIRE New York Times (NYT) company.  He said the controlling family that holds all the votes needs to be taken care or the deal can’t happen.  But Greenberg has approached bankers to try this, and he thinks Jack Welch may want to do more than go after the Boston Globe too.

Charlie also said Home Depot (HD) has been rumored for weeks because of underperformance, but while it is huge they make a lot of money.  KKR has actually crunched the numbers according to him but it would be close to a $100 Billion deal if it happened.  He said this is still a long shot but the chances of a deal are higher than before.

“The Deal”  Magazine’s John Morris keyed in afterwards and said this size would be a stretch and $60 to $70 Billion would be the highest a deal could go now.  The biggest deal so far is $36 Billion, so it would be monumental.  On NYT he said the only way to do the buyout is to have the controlling family stay on.

This is just one day after CNBC’s David Faber said Penn National Gaming (PENN) was considering leveraging up to bid for Harrah’s (HET) and after CNBC immediately after Faber’s report host Merger Markets’ Josh Kosman who said he is hearing that Dollar General (DG) is actively being looked at (after rumors have been in the market for more than a week) by private equity firms since it hit 7.5-times EBITDA at the lows.

Jon C. Ogg
November 29, 2006