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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Hostess Wins Approval for $800 Million in Cake, Bread Sales .
By RACHEL FEINTZEIG
A bankruptcy judge cleared Hostess Brands Inc. to hand over its most popular
cake and bread brands to a bevy of buyers, some of whom hope to get treats
like Twinkies back on the shelves by the summertime.
The baking company, which is liquidating, won permission to sell the
majority of its cake brands, including Ho Hos, Ding Dongs and Twinkies, to
Apollo Global Management LLC APO -1.13% and Metropoulos & Co., two buyout
firms that teamed up with an offer of about $410 million.
Flowers Foods Inc., FLO +1.37% the Thomasville, Ga., maker of Tastykakes and
Nature's Own bread, is poised to pick up five major Hostess bread brands,
including Wonder and Nature's Pride, for $360 million.
Another bread brand, Beefsteak rye, is going to Mexican bakery giant Grupo
Bimbo SAB de CV, with a $31.9 million price tag.
Many of the transactions include assets like depots, bakeries and equipment
in addition to the brands themselves.
No one stepped forward to challenge Apollo and Metropoulos or Flowers with
qualified rival bids for Hostess's chief cake and bread assets. Both
auctions were canceled, leaving those assets to the stalking horses who had
submitted opening bids, which were intended to set a floor price for
contests that never happened.
The Beefsteak rye brand did generate some additional interest, though, with
Bimbo outbidding Flowers's initial $30 million offer to win those assets.
Flowers is entitled to a $900,000 breakup fee after serving as the stalking
horse for that contest.
Metropoulos, which also owns the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer brand, is aiming to
have the baked-goods brands it is buying back on store shelves in a matter
of months, according to spokesman Mark Semer, who said consumers could be
eating Hostess treats by summertime.
Hostess, based in Irving, Texas, entered bankruptcy protection for the
second time in January 2012, saying it needed to cut labor costs in order to
survive. The company attempted to reorganize in Chapter 11 but said in
November that it was shutting down and selling off its 30 or so brands and
36 plants following a nationwide strike by its second-largest union. The
announcement had shoppers clamoring for the company's baked goods, which
soon disappeared from shelves.
Hostess still has some more sale activity on the horizon. On April 9, it
will seek permission to sell its Drake's brand of coffee cakes and other
treats to Little Debbie maker McKee Foods Corp., which submitted an
unchallenged lead bid of $27.5 million. Also at that hearing, Hostess will
seek approval for the sale of its Eddy's, Standish Farms and Grandma Emilie'
s bread brands—plus four bakeries and 14 depots—to a subsidiary of United
States Bakery Inc. The subsidiary emerged as the winner of a Friday auction
for the bread assets, according to a person familiar with Hostess's sale
process, with a $30.9 million offer. It initially bid $28.9 million as the
stalking horse for that contest.
In total, Hostess's sale transactions have brought in about $860 million so
far, Heather Lennox, a Jones Day attorney representing the company, said at
the hearing.
The three transactions up for approval Tuesday represent about $800 million
of that, Jones Day attorney Lisa Laukitis added.
Ms. Lennox said Hostess expects to generate more money through smaller asset
sales being run by Hilco Industrial LLC, which could bring in proceeds in
the "high eight figures," she said. But it is still unclear whether that
will be enough to enable the company to repay the $1.03 billion to $1.04
billion it owes secured creditors.
Hostess received some objections to the sales that were up for consideration
by Judge Robert Drain Tuesday.
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International
Union, which launched the strike that Hostess said crippled its operations
and forced it to shut down, last week railed against the sales, saying they
didn't promise to preserve a "single job." That union dropped its objection
late Thursday, after Hostess changed the wording in its sale agreements to
state that nothing extinguishes the buyers' obligations to organized labor.
In a Friday court filing, Hostess Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn said the
company currently employs about 190 people, including one union employee.
Before liquidating, the company had some 18,000 employees. |
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