Muddied but unbowed Focus looks to go private

The Chinese advertising company Focus Media, which short-seller Muddy Waters claimed was overstating its assets, has received a leveraged-buyout bid from a consortium that includes its chief executive and a group of private-equity firms.

The Carlyle Group, Citic Capital Partners, CDH Investments, China Everbright, FountainVest Partners and Jason Nanchun Jiang, chairman of the board and chief executive of Focus Media, and his affiliates, have joined together to form a consortium that has proposed an offer of $27 in cash for each American depositary share or $5.40 in cash for each ordinary share to take the company private. This values the Shanghai-based company, which has roughly 170,000 flat-panel advertising displays...