Bankruptcy Insider today reported that both Goody’s Family Clothing and Linen’s ’n Things—two bankrupt retailers backed by private equity firms—had no luck selling their leases. They’re asking the U.S. Bankruptcy for the District of Delaware to let them reject the leases in question. Prentice Capital Management-backed Goody’s tried to sell 67 leases and received offers […]
This article first appeared in the August 11 issue of Buyouts. Catterton Partners has sold Wellness Pet Food, a provider of natural pet food products, to a strategic buyer, earning 7x its investment and a 60 percent gross internal rate of return, sources close the transaction told Buyouts. The buyout shop, headquartered in Greenwich, Conn., […]
Monomoy Capital Partners bought a catalogue retailer this week. A curious move, I thought, considering the mail order business has been made nearly obsolete by e-commerce, and retail itself isn’t weathering its hottest days. Just a few months ago, Sun Capital’s catalogue business, Lillian Vernon, went bankrupt, citing rises in paper costs as one of […]
Mezzanine debt, the savior of the leveraged buyout since the onset of the global liquidity crisis last year, is reported to be drying up by sources within the debt community. “In the last month or two, we have seen deals pulled because there is no mezzanine appetite for them,” said the head of leverage at […]
These days, the word “big” is a relative term for PE professionals. In a new semi-regular column, I’ll explore how the some of the biggest (or at least most interesting) deals are getting done. Today’s Big Deal (Kind Of) goes to Vestar Capital Partners. The firm inked a $1.45 billion deal for Unilever’s North American […]
CORRECTION: The previously posted file contained three companies which were in default but had not yet filed for bankruptcy. Those non-bankrupt (but in default) companies are Monitor Clipper Partners’s Recycled Paper Greetings, Cerberus’s Residential Capital Partners, and GWLS Holdings, owned by Investcorp. The updated file, sans defaulters, is available for download after the jump. *** […]
Following Dan’s post on Mervyns, I heard through the grapevine that Cerberus managed to score 2.5X its money on the deal. Since the firm hasn’t disclosed its initial investment, it’s not clear how much money that evens out to be. The point is that it’s a profit on a failing, near-bankrupt business. That profit was […]
Remember The Weather Channel deal? For $3.5 billion, Bain Capital, Blackstone Group and NBC Universal purchased the media business, with debt from insiders like Bain Capital’s Sankaty Advisors, Blackstone’s GSO Capital, and NBC parent GE Commercial Finance. The partnership with NBC Universal is exemplary of the new age of buyouts—a number of PE firms have […]
Last week, a slew of survey and study data came out, and like a diligent reporter I’m wading through them to bring you the highlights of each. Here goes. Global Scenarios for Private Equity and Venture Capital Commissioned by: The European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association Goal: Examine four potential scenarios for the future […]
For our next foray into survey-land, peHub has the goods on a survey taken by our own readers, the ACG-Thomson Reuters Mid-Year 2008 DealMakers Survey. Based on the opinions of more than 500 bankers, PE pros and those providing services to them, TR and ACG came to a few surprising and a few obvious conclusions. […]