I loved reading about that deal. Buffett handled it with aplomb and secured terms which warmed me to the cockles of my blackened capitalist heart. (It was very close to being a five billion dollar juice loan, because Buffett was standing on a large stack of actual money when the private equity markets were in barely restrained terror, and the BATNA to taking his money was probably bankruptcy or nationalization.)
Edit to add: The "juice loan" remark is in reference to the guaranteed 10% yield in perpetuity on those shares, which isn't actually a mafia interest rate but is such a worse deal than large megacorps usually pay for capital that it it had been done to a natural person I would hope a court would rule it unconscionable. At the level of megacorps though, shucks, you pays your money and you takes your chances.
At the time for example the UK government was taking lots of 12% preferred bonds/shares in the UK banks. So GS probably saw ready money and ~ 2% better terms from Buffet than other sufficiently large lenders.
Barclays took a lot of money from Saudi. If memory serves the terms were in many ways worse than the UK government were offering but they were keen (potentially rightly so in hindsight) to avoid the political / PR entanglements of being in debt to a government which was under pressure from a banker hating electorate.
Edit to add: The "juice loan" remark is in reference to the guaranteed 10% yield in perpetuity on those shares, which isn't actually a mafia interest rate but is such a worse deal than large megacorps usually pay for capital that it it had been done to a natural person I would hope a court would rule it unconscionable. At the level of megacorps though, shucks, you pays your money and you takes your chances.