Sure that is commercial lending.* And the acquirer owes the debt. But that's not how LBOs work. In an LBO the target owes the debt.

*Coverage of 1:1 is an accident waiting to happen, but otherwise sure.

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sokoloff 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not especially different from the typical LLC/SPE holding structure where individual properties in a large real estate portfolio are not held directly, but rather by a single-purpose entity that holds each property and then is owned by a larger but distinct entity. You don't want an issue in a single company/property to be able to take down your entire holding company. If someone will lend you money without cross-collateralization, why wouldn't you prefer that?

If PE firm A wants to buy company C using an LBO, it could do so by having C borrow money and then A purchase C, or by creating an entity B that borrows money and then purchases C. Whether B or C owns the debt doesn't change anything meaningful for A, and it's pretty clear that you're allowed to form company B (and really hard to imagine how you'd make that illegal without effects that would be worse than current).

	▲	nyeah 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>If someone will lend you money without cross-collateralization, why wouldn't you prefer that? I would prefer that! I'd prefer even more strongly that the debt be owed by someone else entirely, so a default isn't associated with me at all. If you're up for it I'd also prefer to use your credit card number to buy stuff on Amazon. But for whatever reason the law doesn't always seem to follow my preference. I'm sensitive to your point about restricting formation of new corps. The system can't just be changed randomly without extremely careful thought. And often not even then.