When Westinghouse Electric decided to sell its defence unit last year to pay off the $5.5 billion in debt its acquisition of CBS had required, it felt there was only one place to go: the new Chase Manhattan Bank. "We didn't want any uncertainty," says Fred Reynolds, Westinghouse's chief financial officer.
Westinghouse was looking for a cash deal, and wanted to make sure that the buyer would be able to come up with the money. Chase, with its expertise in lending to the defence industry, was well placed to review potential bidders. The bank recommended Northrop Grumman, even though its BBB rated balance sheet made Reynolds a bit nervous. "I had to be comfortable that they could raise the funds," says the CFO. But thanks to the bank's market clout in syndicated loans, Northrop had no trouble raising the required $3.6 billion. Westinghouse couldn't have been happier. "We clearly set a record for the kinds of multiples we got for selling that business," says Reynolds. That deal was followed by Chase's role as a marriage-broker in Westinghouse's subsequent $4.9 billion purchase of another Chase lending client, Infinity Broadcasting.
The two deals were tremendous coups for the US bank as it tries to leverage its capital strength and dominance of the syndicated loan market into becoming a major global investment bank.