Consider the impending debt restructuring at Energy Future Holdings a high stakes game of Texas hold ’em. Energy Future, the former TXU, is the Texas utility that went private in a $45bn leveraged buyout during the heady days of 2007. The private equity firms behind the transaction, led by KKR and TPG, paid a seemingly modest 8.5 times operating cash flow for a company that sold a product (electricity) that everybody needed. But the two firms did not foresee the economic crisis that would curtail power demand and then the historic boom in US natural gas production that has depressed the prices they could charge for electricity. (The 2007 TXU management plan assumed natural gas prices of about $8/Mmbtu between 2008 and 2011. Actual average price: $5/Mmbtu.) Energy Future had already modified terms on $25bn of debt. But now comes the reckoning where equity and debt holders wrangle over an altered capital structure that the company can move forward with. And, of course, who gets how much of what.
能源期貨控股公司(Energy Future Holdings)將要進行的債務重組，可被想象成一盤有巨額賭注的德州撲克游戲。能源期貨公司的前身是德克薩斯公共事業公司(TXU)，在2007年經濟繁榮時期，借助一筆450億美元的杠桿收購交易實現了私有。這筆交易背后是KKR和TPG為首的私人股本公司，他們以8.5倍于營業現金流這一看似合理的價格，買下一家出售每個人都需要的產品（電力）的公司。但這兩家公司沒有預見到經濟危機將削弱電力需求，以及此后抑制了電價的美國在天然氣開采方面的歷史性繁榮。（2007年TXU的管理計劃假設2008年至2011年期間天然氣價格約為8美元/Mmbtu。實際均價則是5美元/Mmbtu。）能源期貨公司已經修改了250億美元債務的條款。但現在股權和債權持有者圍繞該公司面向未來的資本結構變更（以及誰能分到什么、分到多少）爭論不休。