| |||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
Although 2008 was supposed to be a dream year for distressed investing specialists like Sun Capital Partners, a string of bankrupt portfolio companies threatens to turn it into a nightmare for the Boca Raton, Fla., private equity firm.
According to Bankruptcy Insider, the distressed asset buyout shop has seen four companies go under this year. The latest casualty
was Tuesday's bankruptcy filing by retailer Mervyn's Holdings LLC,
which Sun Capital, Cerberus Capital Management LP and
real estate investor Lubert-Adler/Klaff Partners LP bought from Target Corp.
in 2004 for $1.2 billion. Cerberus sold its stake last November for a
profit. Other Sun Capital portfolio companies to file Chapter 11 in 2008 include Jevic Holding
Corp., Powermate Holding Corp. and Lillian Vernon Corp. While the bankruptcy of portfolio companies isn't welcome
news for Sun Capital's limited partners, they also go into the fund knowing that
the failure of some investments is inevitable since the firm
specializes in distressed companies. Nor do the bankruptcies seem to
have slowed down Sun's general partners much either. Since the start of
June, Sun purchased distressed U.K. furniture retailer ScS Upholstery
plc and frozen food company Sunrise Growers-Frozsun Foods Inc., while
selling portfolio company Exopack Holding Corp. to Dynamic Solutions
Unlimited LLC. Sun has also dodged some bullets. It avoided exposure to
the toxic mortgage origination market when it broke off a deal to buy
First NLC Financial Services LLC, a Boca Raton subprime lender. The busted buyout ended up with First
NLC filing for Chapter 11. - George White See Mervyn's story on TheDeal.com See Bankruptcy Insider data on Sun Capital See Dealwatch on PE-back bankruptcies CategoriesComments Deal Video
    Community
 Elsewhere on The Deal.comDealwatch
The Deal MagazineCorporate Dealmaker
The Deal VideoCategories
Blog roll
Archives
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
It was only the Newmaket plant of Exopack