Usually, companies go from private to publicly traded and owned, not the other way around. Going public is seen as a natural path of progression, offering a great way to raise funds for expansion while often making it possible fo🦂r the owners to retain majority ownership. However, there are also drawbacks, and money-making opportunities, that occasionally lead companies, including well-known ones, to buck the normal trend and return to private status.

A 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:private company is privately owned. It can issue stock but those shares don't trade on stock exchanges for the public to buy.

One of the main reasons public companies 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:go private is to avoid being subject to the reporting requirements imposed on publicly listed corporations by the U.S. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Securities and E𝄹xch♚ange Commission (SEC). Private companies face less scrutiny. They are free from the constant pressure to deliver quick returns, as is the case for many large publicly listed companies. T⛎hat means management can think more long-term and embark, if they wish, on high-risk, and high-return ventures without worrying about quart💦erly results.

Companies can go private in several ways, including through 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:private equity buyouts, management buyouts, and tender offers. At deal closing, the publicly traded shares are delisted, with shareholders receiving the specified price per share in cash.

In this article, we look at 10 of the best-known public compa🐈nies that went privaꦐte.

X Corp.

In April 2022, the messaging platform Twitter (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:now X Corp) accepted a $44 billion buyout offer from Elon Musk, the planet's richest human at the time with an estimated net worth of approximately $268 billion.

Twitter's share price peaked above $77 in Feb. 2021, but was down more than 50% from that high by Jan. 2022, when Musk began accumulating the 9.2% stake he disclosed in March. Musk was offered and accepted a seat on Twitter's board, but declined it days later and instead made an informal offer of $54.20 per share in a public "bear hug" letter to Twitter's board.

Twitter adopted a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:poison pill shareholder rights plan to discourage Musk from increasing his stake, but then entered into talks with the tycoon after he disclosed committed financing for the transaction. Musk said after the deal was reached that his goal for Twitter is to ensure free speech while improving the service's features.

In April 2023, Musk announced that Twitter "no longer exists," and that the company changed its name to X Corp. The platform formally changed its name to X in July 2023.

Heinz

Heinz, the producer of a famous ketchup brand dating back to 1869 and a variety of other processed foods, was taken private in 2013 in a joint venture between Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) and Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital, who paid $72.50 per share in cash to buy the company out in a deal that valued Heinz at about $28 billion including assumed debt.

Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital proceeded to focus on cutting costs by closing factories and firing hundreds of workers. Then, two years later, in 2015, the company merged with Kraft Foods Group to form The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) and went public again. Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital invested an additional $10 billion in order to secure a 51% controlling stake in the combined company.

Burger King

The fast-food restaurant chain first went public in 2006, raising $425 million. Shares traded on the NYSE under the ticker symbol BKC.

3G Capital took the company private again in 2010, buying it for $24 per share, or $3.3 billion. The plan was to fix the business and close the gap with competitors out of the public eye. After two years of strategy reviews and being overhauled, the new-look Burger King relisted as a public company in 2012 through a reverse merger with London-listed Justice Holdings. 

In 2014, Burger King bought Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons in a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:tax inversion merger worth $11.5 billion at the time of the announcement. The combined company, named Restaurant Brands International (QSR), is based for tax purposes in Canada, though it retained a New York Stock Exchange listing in addition to one on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

Dell

Michael Dell, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:chief executive officer (CEO) of Dell Computer who famously started the computer hardware supplier in his college dorm room, teamed up with the Silver Lake Partners private equity firm to take the company private for $24.4 billion in October 2013.

After acquiring EMC in 2015 in a $67 billion mostly debt-financed deal, Dell returned to public markets in late 2018 through a controversial exchange of Dell stock for VMWare tracking shares listed as part of the EMC deal. The deal was worth roughly $24 billion. In 2021, Dell spun off VMWare. Inc. (VMW) into a separate publicly listed company.

Alliance Boots

The European health care and pharmacy chain, then listed on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:London Stock Exchange (LSE), set a record as the biggest leveraged buyout in Europe when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), and Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina bought it for $22.2 billion in 2007, prevailing over a rival group of private equity bidders.

U.S. pharmacy chain Walgreens purchased a 45% stake in the private company in 2012 and the remainder in 2014, paying a total of about $22 billion in cash and stock to form Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA).

In 2022, WBA began exploring the possibility of selling Boots, the UK drugstore chain that formed a key part of Alliance Boots's business. It then looked into IPOing the business but shelved those plans in 2024 while continuing to discuss a sale with potential buyers.

EQ Office

Equity Office Properties Trust, founded by real estate tycoon Sam Zell, was the largest publicly listed owner of office and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:commercial properties in the U.S. when it agreed in 2006 to be acquired by an affiliate of the Blackstone Group (BX) for $36 billion. The deal followed multiple rounds of high-stakes bidding, with Blackstone ultimately prevailing over Vornado Realty Trust (VNO).

The company changed its name to EQ Office in 2018 and, as of 2024, remains a private company owned by Blackstone.

Hilton

Hilton is a leading global hotel franchise with more than 8,300 properties in 138 countries and territories. The company was founded by Conrad Hilton in 1919 after he purchased his first hotel in Cisco, Texas. The first hotel to use the Hilton name was in Dallas.

In October 2007, Blackstone Group bought the company in a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:leveraged buyout (LBO) for $26 billion. Hilton went public again, resuming trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol HLT in December 2013, with Blackstone retaining a stake of more than 45%. The company's second IPO raised more than $2 billion.

Kinder Morgan

Kinder Morgan was managing one of North America's largest energy pipelines and storage portfolios when it went private in May 2007, following a buyout led by its chairman and co-founder Richard D. Kinder and backed by American International Group (AIG), The Carlyle Group (CG), Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, and Riverstone Holdings LLC for about $22 billion.

The company didn't spend too many years in the shadows. Less than four years later, during a commodity price boom, it went public again, raising about $3 billion from the listing of a 15.5% stake.

Panera Bread

In April 2017, Panera, a fast-casual restaurant chain known for its soups, salads, sandwiches, and baked goods, agreed to be acquired by the private investment firm JAB Holding Company—which also owns brands like Keurig, Krispy Kreme, and Peets Coffee and Tea—in a deal worth more than $7 billion.

Panera is expected to return as a public company at some point in the near future. Another IPO has been years in the making. In 2021, JAB Holding Company combined Panera Bread, Caribou Coffee, and Einstein Bagels into Panera Brands with an IPO in mind. However, a couple of months later, the company wound up walking away from the deal.

In March 2024, Reuters reported that Panera has been loosening its ingredient standards to reduce costs and prepare for an IPO. The company is also exploring a potential sale of Caribou Coffee as well as Einstein Bros Bagels and its other bagel brands.

Reader’s Digest

First published in 1922, today Reader’s Digest is published in 22 countries and 17 languages.

The magazine was acquired by Ripplewood Holdings LLC in March 2007 for $2.4 billion. The company faced financial problems before the deal, and in its aftermath filed for bankruptcy numerous times. In 2015, Reader's Digest Association rebranded itself as Trusted Media Brands in recognition of all the brands under the company's banner.

Reader’s Digest, like many other magazines, has struggled in recent years. The U.K. edition stopped being published in 2024, although in other markets it has been able to survive, in part thanks to efforts from Trust Media Brands, whose other publications include Taste of Home, The Family Handyman, and Birds & Blooms, to find new revenue streams.

The Bottom Line

The pattern is clear: today's going-private buyout is in some future year a likely new initial public offering, as private owners seek to cash out. Private equity firms have time-constrained investment horizons and are generally not in the business of running the same businesses for decades.

That, in turn, means that while private companies are not subject to pressure from public shareholders, they are still managed in the short-term interest of their new private owners. That might mean laying off employees, divesting assets, or taking on new debt to pay the owners a dividend, and such measures may or may not be in the company's long-term interest as distinct from that of its new paymasters.

In any case, private buyers taking control of publicly listed companies are among the most sophisticated players in business and finance. If they're paying up, it's likely because they've mapped several potentially lucrative exit strategies. Listing the company again in time is often going to be near the top of that list.