“Companies involved in hostile takeovers have long used a strategy of signing up many big investment banks as advisers if only to deprive their opponents of these services. But private equity firms have taken this tactic to a new level,” reports The New York Times. (Registration required. No fee for access.)

“Sellers may begin to fight back. In recent weeks, bankers and lawyers have been talking about the possibility of signing up as many as a half-dozen banks in advance of auctions to work for the seller and provide preapproved loans to buyers, in what some are describing as a “community staple” - a takeoff on the concept of “staple financing.” (Staple financing is when a seller’s adviser also offers financing to the buyer that is stapled onto the auction material.)”