It was a particularly trying moment in the negotiations. Blackstone, the US private equity giant, was in last-minute negotiations with the promoters of the Andhra Pradesh-based Ushodaya Enterprises, owners of Eenadu and ETV, to buy a stake in their media business. Broad details had been agreed upon and documents were being prepared when the deal makers realised that the structure can be tweaked slightly. A plain vanilla equity structure (with cash being brought in lieu of equity shares) was fine, but a higher return can be squeezed out if preference shares could be added. The question then was about the fixed dividend on the preference shares. The Blackstone team debated the issue for a long time, but it was proving to be a knotty problem. The dividend should be high enough to cover Blacktone’s interest costs otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. Akhil Gupta, the chairman and managing director of Blackstone Advisors India, didn’t bat an eyelid. “4.5%. It should be at least that much to cover the interest Blackstone is paying globally,” he told his team. In the end, they didn’t have to worry. Blackstone and Ushodaya opted for equity shares. But the incident highlighted Mr Gupta’s level of preparedness and attention to detail. […]