Raising multinational finance

There are two methods of raising finance for multinational firms; debt and equity. Equity is sold to investors in the form of a share, or a number of shares in the company. When a company first starts to sell its shares in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) it becomes 'listed' on the stock exchange which it had applied to.
Debt finance is raised through the securing of Capital from a lender (eg. a bank) in return for a promise (either secured, or not) to repay the money borrowed at a later date and to pay interest in the interim period on a regular basis.
In recent news, the sale of Heinz to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the private equity firm 3G has used both share capital and debt finance to secure it. Shareholders are still to vote on the outcome of the sale but Berkshire Hathaway will be paying $12-13 billion in cash totaling $23 billion and the remaining balance will be raised through debt finance. Current share holders are going to be offered $72.50 per share which is a 20% premium to the current market share price, representing a significant return on investment for original shareholders.
The huge amount of debt to be taken on (c $5 billion) is a risk even considering that debt is one of the least risky forms of multinational finance. However, the finer points of the deal are still to be decided and this includes what kind of debt will be used and what it will be secured against (a figure this large will surely be secured against something, despite Berkshire Hathaway having an excellent credit rating from Moody's of Aa2).
During the Economic crisis, the number of mergers and acquisitions fell as the rate of borrowing went up and it become more difficult to raise equity finance as fewer investors were keen to spend their capital. But recently there has been a number of headline grabbing mergers, such as that between American Airlines and US Airways for $11 billion that will create the worlds largest airline. The other recent example of this was the  proposed takeover of Dell by its founder, Michael Dell, for $24 billion. Closer to home, the UK's Virgin Media is to be bought by Liberty Global for $23.3 billion.
The US Airways and American Airlines merger has brought a lot of scrutiny on itself as it raises questions regarding the competition within the industry, particularly North America. However, this is a point for another post!