Veda Advantage shareholders yesterday voted strongly in favour of a scheme of arrangement that will see the credit reference and business information company acquired by VA Australia Finance, a company owned by Pacific Equity Partners and Merrill Lynch Private Equity.At the meeting 91.7 per cent of shares were voted and 99.1 per cent of votes cast were in favour of the proposal.The latest public-to-private deal continues the trend to high level of leverage. The $3.61 cash offer gave Veda an enterprise value of $963 million. Based in this year's forecast EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of around $65 million the debt component of the acquisition funding represents seven to eight times EBITDA.A Federal Court hearing to approve the scheme is scheduled for June 22. Court orders are expected to be lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on June 25 and Veda will cease trading on the Australian and New Zealand Stock Exchanges on that day.Veda (formerly Baycorp Advantage) has had an unstable share register since 2004, when Allco Equity Partners made an unsuccessful bid and ended up with 17 per cent of the stock. The private equity consortium's offer price of $3.61 a share was a 32 per cent premium to the Veda share price when the bid was launched in January and was at the upper end of the independent expert's valuation range. The consortium was advised by Gresham Partners.The new owners want to retain existing management and will be negotiating with the team over the next few weeks.The bidders were not put off when Veda stumbled a couple of times during the bid process. Its financial report for the six months to December showed a six per cent decline in the contribution from New Zealand Operations. This result was affected by a slow New Zealand economy, adverse exchange rate movements and some business interruption caused by delays to a platform rebuild.And in April a class action was started by a group of plaintiffs who claim Veda has a flawed credit reporting process that has caused them financial harm.