Owl Rock Capital Partners LP and Dyal Capital Partners agreed to merge into a complicated business that would make them public through a check-free company.
The new company, which will be called Blue Owl, will combine one of the largest private equity owners with Owl Rock, a fast-growing investor. It is estimated at about $ 12.5 billion.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that companies were discussing such an agreement.
The companies intend to go public through a merger with Altimar Acquisition Body.
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, a special purpose procurement company sponsored by an affiliate of HPS Investment Partners LLC. The agreement also includes additional funding of about $ 1.5 billion from institutional investors.
Blue Owl will be led by Owl Rock co-founder Doug Ostrover as executive director.
SPAC mergers have recently exploded in popularity as an alternative to traditional initial public offerings. This transaction, assuming that the shareholders approve it, would be one of the largest such transactions. It is the second-largest SPAC transaction announced in the United States this year, overshadowed by just one deal to make the public initiating the United Wholesale Mortgage mortgage valued at about $ 16 billion.
The agreement is also one of the few cases where two companies merge with each other and a SPAC simultaneously. DraftKings sports betting operator Inc.
merged with a gaming technology provider as part of a deal that made it public through a SPAC earlier this year.
Dyal was founded in 2011 by veterans Lehman Brothers, Michael Rees and Sean Ward, and is the largest owner of minority shares in private equity firms, credit shops and hedge funds. He already holds stakes in both Owl Rock and HPS.
Throughout its existence, Dyal has been a unit of Neuberger Berman Group LLC, the large private investment firm. Neuberger would hold a stake in Blue Owl and hold a leadership position.
Owl Rock was founded in 2016 by Mr. Ostrover, who co-founded GSO Capital Partners and later sold it to Blackstone Group; former partner KKR & Co. Marc Lipschultz; and the former Goldman Sachs group Inc.
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banker Craig Packer. It has accumulated assets of up to $ 23.7 billion, managed primarily through business development companies.
The firm focuses on a fast-growing area known as direct lending, in which non-banks lend to medium-sized companies, many of them backed by private equity, and hold them on their books. Such lenders have risen due to the financial crisis of 2008-09, when banks gave up many of their riskier businesses.
Perella Weinberg Partners LP, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and BofA Securities Inc. are financial advisors to Owl Rock. Ardea Partners LP is financial advisor to Neuberger Berman and Dyal; Evercore Group LLC is a financial advisor for Dyal; and JP Morgan Securities LLC is a financial advisor to Altimar. Citigroup and UBS also advise Neuberger Berman.
Write to Cara Lombardo at [email protected] and Miriam Gottfried at [email protected]
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