Hawaiian Telcom Communications, which was purchased in 2005 by Carlyle Group, has become the latest private equity-owned company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Unlike most troubled private equity owned companies, Hawaiian Telcom was not a victim of the excesses and subsequent meltdown in the credit markets. Carlyle bought the group for $1.6bn in equity and debt. Compared to other boom-time private equity takeovers, its leverage was conservative: its ratio of debt to earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortisation (ebitda) was five times.