A communicating-FrontBurnervian from TXU passed along a Squawk Box transcript from this morning, with CNBC’s David Faber dispelling the rumor of Citi’s cold feet. Said transcript is after the jump.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 | There’s a weird story going around today saying that Citi is going to pay the billion-dollar breakup fee to get out of the financing. Let me put the other lower third up. I want to tell you why that’s not true, not true. Not true. TXU, Citi is not contemplating that. In fact having spoken to people familiar with Citi’s thinking they say that’s crazy and that is not true. So put that one to rest. It has been racing all over the place this morning, the idea that Citi will pay the breakup fee to get out of the financing. Back to you.
Tuesday,July 31, 2007 Finally want to end with TXU again just to come back to this. There’s been a story that’s been going around, this idea that the big banks which may be on the hook or on the hook for the big bridge loans are going to turn to the sponsor and say “hey, we’ll pay your breakup fee if you will let us out of it because the loss we’re going to take is going to be even more.” So the story going around this morning was the billion dollars breakup fee on TXU Citi is saying they will pay it. It’s simply not true that Citi is even considering doing that. That would be a big deal. But yet again to emphasize, according to people at the bank it is not true.
(Dow Jones) Citigroup (C) isn’t considering paying the breakup fee to get out of TXU buyout, CNBC’s David Faber reports, citing people familiar with the bank’s thinking. “Citi is not contemplating that,” he said. Thomson Financial earlier reported banks led by Citi are considering paying the fee to break the agreement, citing sources, in order to avoid being stuck with $37.2B in committed debt to fund the purchase. Citi wasn’t immediately available for comment. TXU off 0.3% at $65.69.
Again, CNBC’s David Faber says, “Not true.”
