Alltel gets its privacy - for $24.7 billion

Filed under: Private equity, ALLTEL Corp (AT), Goldman Sachs Group (GS)Despite all the rumors, the $24.7 billion buyout of Alltel (NYSE: AT) got done. With the credit crunch and botched deals, the stock definitely showed volatility. But, the private equity folks at Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) certainly didn't lose interest in the company. The stock price on the transaction was $71.50. No doubt, Alltel made some key strategic moves to make itself attractive to private equity sponsors. Perhaps the most important initiative was the spin-off of its wireline business in 2006. Basically, this provided more focus for the company. To get some more perspective on the deal, I checked out the proxy disclosures. Alltel took the approach of a quicker auction - so as to minimize le