It appears the deal for private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Bain Capital Partners LLC to take Clear Channel Communications’ Private is in the process of imploding.

The banks that are supposed to back the deal, “Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group, Royal Bank of Scotland PLC and Wachovia Corp”, appear willing to eat the termination fees, and the private equity firms aren’t to interested in going forward either.

The only folks looking eagerly toward closing the deal are the founders, the Mays family.

The article describes the process as, “The negotiations have turned into a bizarre “kabuki” dance, said one person familiar with the situation. To protect against litigation, neither the private-equity firms nor the banks want to leave any doubt that they are committed to closing the deal. But their public actions have little to do with what’s going on in private, say a number of people involved in the matter.”

Basically, the first person to blink gets sued.

The deal is supposed to be for $19 billion, and a breakup fee is likely to be around $600 million, and if the banks repackage and resell the loan, which they really have to do, they are saying that it would have to be at around a 15% discount, which seems to me with my imperfect non-MBA math to show that it is cheaper to back out.

I wish that there was a way for all of them, particularly the Mays family, the creator of the cancer of the airwaves, Clear Channel, to lose.

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