CVC, Canada's CPPIB to buy Petco for about $4.6 billion

(Reuters) - Petco Holdings Inc agreed to be acquired by CVC Capital Partners Ltd and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in a $4.6 billion deal, after merger talks with market leader PetSmart Inc stalled last month due to antitrust concerns.

Petco, the No.2 U.S. pet supplies retailer, had been put up for sale by a group of investors led by private equity firms TPG Capital LP and Leonard Green & Partners LP, the company said on Monday.

TPG Capital and Leonard Green bought Petco for the second time when it was a public company in 2006 in a $1.7 billion deal. The two buyout firms had also taken the company private in 2000 for $600 million, and then took it public again in 2002.

TPG and Leonard Green had been hoping to sell the company for more than $5 billion, including debt, sources told Reuters in October.

Based in San Diego, California, Petco was founded as a mail-order company in 1965 and currently operates more than 1,400 stores in the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico. It had sales of about $4 billion in the year to Jan 31.

CVC and CPPIB have secured more than $3 billion in debt financing for the acquisition, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Canada, Credit Suisse, Nomura and Macquarie have provided committed debt financing to CVC and CPPIB, the companies said on Monday.

Goldman, Sachs & Co and JP Morgan Securities LLC are financial advisers to Petco, while Ropes & Gray acted as its legal counsel.

Barclays, Citigroup and Moelis advised CVC and CPPIB, while Gibson Dunn provided legal advice.

(Reporting by Shubhankar Chakravorty in Bengaluru; Editing by Ted Kerr and Siddharth Cavale)

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