Hicks Muse Tate Furst Inc

* Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. said it will buy a Danish seed business for about $48.9 million from British food wholesaler Booker. The leveraged buyout company said L. Daehnfeldt had sales of about $47.3 million in 1997.

Thomas O. Hicks, who built Hicks Muse Tate & Furst Inc. into the second-largest buyout firm before $2 billion in losses on telecommunications and media stakes helped drop it to ninth, will retire in March 2005. Co-founder John R. Muse, 53, will succeed Hicks, 58, the Dallas-based firm said in a statement.

Privately held investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc., Liberty Media Corp. and Motorola Inc. said they will team up to form Digital Latin America to help accelerate the availability of high-speed Internet services and digital programming for cable television customers in Latin America. Digital Latin America will service Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean, covering more than 92 million TV households, the companies said.

Hicks Muse Tate & Furst Inc. and Apax Partners & Co. agreed Sunday to buy British Telecommunications' yellow pages unit for $3 billion as Britain's second-largest phone company tries to lower its debt. The two buyout firms will pay $2.8 billion in cash and close to $200 million in loan notes for Yell Group, British Telecom said. The transaction would be the biggest leveraged buyout of a European company this year and the third-biggest ever, according to the research firm Initiative Europe.

Johns Manville Corp. said its previously announced merger pact with an investor group led by affiliates of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. has terminated. The companies agreed to break off the agreement because of weak industry conditions, an increasingly negative outlook for the economy and unfavorable financing markets, the Denver-based maker of building materials said.

An unidentified affiliate of Dallas-based leveraged-buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. agreed to buy Zycon Corp. for $179.6 million, the firm's third recent plan to purchase a circuit board maker. The affiliate would pay $16.25 a share for Santa Clara-based Zycon, whose shares surged $3.50 to $16 on Nasdaq. In October, Hicks Muse bought Montreal-based Circo Craft Co. for $124.1 million and has completed the $200-million purchase of Lucent Technologies Inc.'s circuit board business.

Thomas O. Hicks, who built Hicks Muse Tate & Furst Inc. into the second-largest buyout firm before $2 billion in losses on telecommunications and media stakes helped drop it to ninth, will retire in March 2005. Co-founder John R. Muse, 53, will succeed Hicks, 58, the Dallas-based firm said in a statement.

Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. agreed to buy most of Home Interiors & Gifts Inc. for $920 million, betting that the company can become one of the nation's largest direct-sales marketers. Hicks Muse said the acquisition, for $170 million in cash, $275 million in equity and $475 million in assumed debt, will give the closely held investment firm about 65% of Home Interiors, which had 1997 sales of $468 million. It sells products nationwide through about 48,000 independent representatives.

Partnership to Buy Triad: A partnership led by Dallas-based Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. said it will buy Triad Systems Corp., a maker of computer systems for auto parts and hardware stores, in a deal worth $300 million. Hicks, Muse and its partner, Cooperative Computing Inc., said they will begin a direct offer to Triad shareholders of about $181.2 million. The offer represents a 68% premium over Triad's closing price Wednesday of $5.50 a share. Triad shares surged $4 to $9.50 on Nasdaq.

Buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. agreed to buy LIN Television Corp., the nation's 22nd-largest TV group, for about $1.7 billion, or $47.50 a share, in cash, the companies said. That is more than 2% below LIN's closing share price of $48.63, up 75 cents, on Nasdaq. Providence, R.I.-based LIN owns and operates eight network-affiliated TV stations; its flagship station is KXAS, the NBC affiliate in Dallas. LIN was formed in December 1994 as a spinoff from LIN Broadcasting Corp. AT&T Corp.

Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, the buyout firm battered by money-losing bets on movie theaters and telecommunications start-ups, said it's returning to basic industries with the purchase of bankrupt pickle maker Vlasic Foods International Inc. for about $370 million. Vlasic persuaded a bankruptcy judge two weeks ago to approve the sale of its assets to the buyout group. The sale also includes Open Pit barbecue sauce and Swanson frozen foods, which created the first frozen pot pie and TV dinners.

Hicks Muse Tate & Furst may take 12 more months to raise its current $4-billion fund, a sign some big investors are wary of putting money with the world's largest corporate buyout firm. Dallas-based Hicks Muse has struggled to raise money as bets on fledgling telecommunications companies such as ICG Communications and the nation's biggest movie theater chain, Regal Cinemas, have plunged in value. Of the $1.

Johns Manville Corp. said its previously announced merger pact with an investor group led by affiliates of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. has terminated. The companies agreed to break off the agreement because of weak industry conditions, an increasingly negative outlook for the economy and unfavorable financing markets, the Denver-based maker of building materials said.

Hicks Muse Tate & Furst Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Inc. are discussing whether to cut their losses on a $1-billion bet on Regal Cinemas Inc. or up the ante by buying the theater chain's troubled rivals. With Regal bonds selling for 12 cents on the dollar and lenders pushing to get repaid, Hicks Muse co-founder Thomas Hicks said the two buyout firms, among the world's biggest, have deep enough pockets to help revive the business.

Britain's Allied Domecq may face a rival bid from Pernod-Ricard and U.S. private equity group Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst for the spirits business of Seagram Co., bankers said. Allied Domecq is seeking a loan of more than $3.8 billion to support its widely expected bid for Seagram's spirits arm, although it has yet to enter formal talks with the Canadian group, an industry source told Reuters.

Privately held investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc., Liberty Media Corp. and Motorola Inc. said they will team up to form Digital Latin America to help accelerate the availability of high-speed Internet services and digital programming for cable television customers in Latin America. Digital Latin America will service Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean, covering more than 92 million TV households, the companies said.

NBC and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. are reportedly in talks about forming a partnership that would own two television stations and forge long-term ties between the top-rated network and one of the nation's biggest station owners. NBC would contribute its station in San Diego and an undisclosed amount of cash and debt to the partnership, said people familiar with the transaction.

Monsanto Co. said it had agreed to sell for an undisclosed amount of cash its cotton seed business to the Dallas-based buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc., a move that may clear the way for Monsanto to complete its long-pending acquisition of cotton seed breeder Delta & Pine Land Co. In May, a year after St. Louis-based Monsanto and Delta & Pine agreed to merge, Delta's directors voted to extend the time frame for completing the deal to Dec.

CMGI Inc., an Internet venture capital company, along with Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. and Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd. formed a partnership to invest $1.5 billion in Internet companies outside the U.S. Each company will invest as much as $500 million in the partnership, to be named AtVentures Global Partners. The companies plan to open offices in London and Hong Kong to manage investments in Asia, Europe and South America.

Monsanto Co. said it had agreed to sell for an undisclosed amount of cash its cotton seed business to the Dallas-based buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc., a move that may clear the way for Monsanto to complete its long-pending acquisition of cotton seed breeder Delta & Pine Land Co. In May, a year after St. Louis-based Monsanto and Delta & Pine agreed to merge, Delta's directors voted to extend the time frame for completing the deal to Dec.