On Sunday, PetSmart agreed to sell itself to BC Partners for about $8.7 billion, in the biggest leveraged buyout of an active year. The purchase price, about $83 a share, is almost 7 percent higher than PetSmart's closing price on Wall Street last Friday, and 39 percent higher than in early July, after activist investor Jana Partners disclosed a stake in the company. PetSmart has some 1,300 pet stores in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and investors say it was a tempting target because of its healthy cash flow, low debt, and the growth of the pet supply sector.
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