Banks Have Days to Sell Nielsen Debt, or Fund LBO Themselves

Lenders including Bank of America Corp. have just a few days to sell investors $8.35 billion of bonds and loans tied to the leveraged buyout of Nielsen Holdings, or else they’ll be forced to finance part of the LBO themselves.

Barclays Plc, BofA, and other underwriters have been waiting for debt yields to stabilize and market conditions to improve before selling the secured bonds and leveraged loans, according to people familiar with the matter. But the buyout of Nielsen, the television ratings company, is slated to close around Oct. 11, according to a filing.

If the banks were ...