By Bernard Vaughan
NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) – Hostess Brands Inc
said Monday its snack-cake business would be sold to private
equity firms Apollo Global Management LLC and C. Dean
Metropoulos & Co after no other bids were received, negating the
need for an auction.
Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos in January
offered $410 million for the business, which includes Twinkies,
Cup Cakes and Suzy Q’s.
The bid by the private equity firms for the 82-year-old
baker was to serve as the minimum offer for the business, which
others could have topped in an auction. Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo
had been seen as a potential candidate but no other
bids materialized.
“Pursuant to the bidding procedures order, no auction will
be conducted and buyer is the successful bidder,” the company’s
attorneys wrote in a filing on Monday with the U.S. Bankruptcy
Court in White Plains, NY.
Hostess was granted permission by a U.S. bankruptcy court
judge in November to wind down its business and liquidate its
assets after a strike by a baker’s union crippled the company’s
operations.
Hostess Brands Inc said Monday its snack-cake
business would be sold to private equity firms Apollo Global
Management LLC and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co after no other bids
were received, negating the need for an auction.
Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos in January
offered $410 million for the business, which includes Twinkies,
Cup Cakes and Suzy Q’s.
The bid by the private equity firms for the 82-year-old
baker was to serve as the minimum offer for the business, which
others could have topped in an auction. Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo
had been seen as a potential candidate but no other
bids materialized.
“Pursuant to the bidding procedures order, no auction will
be conducted and buyer is the successful bidder,” the company’s
attorneys wrote in a filing on Monday with the U.S. Bankruptcy
Court in White Plains, NY.
Hostess was granted permission by a U.S. bankruptcy court
judge in November to wind down its business and liquidate its
assets after a strike by a baker’s union crippled the company’s
operations.
Apollo spokesman Charles Zehren declined comment.
Representatives of C. Dean Metropoulos and Perella Weinberg
Partners, the advisory firm which is managing the sale of
Hostess assets, were not immediately available.
Apollo said in a press release announcing its bid that it
expects the deal to close before the end of April. The firm,
which had $113 billion in assets under management at the end of
last year, said it saw “significant potential for renewed growth
and expansion into additional channels of distribution,” with
the brands.
