Food/Beverage

News

CCMP Capital Lands Quiznos CEO

CCMP Capital will see Greg Brenneman, currently the chief executive of sandwich chain Quiznos, join its ranks as chairman and investment committee member at the end of next month. Brenneman is known for steering companies through turnaround processes.

Ratings Actions & Outlooks

The latest in ratings downgrades and outlooks from Moody's and S&P.

Tough Week For PE-Backed Pizza Shops

Are private equity-backed pizza chains going to be the next restaurant segment heading towards restructuring activity?

A New Chapter For Mrs. Fields

Mrs. Fields Famous Brands, a purveyor of cookies and the owner of TCBY yogurts, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Don't Stick A Fork In 'Em Yet

Distressed restaurant opportunities are creating real estate plays for investors and expansion opportunities for selective chains.

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Articles

PE Firms Wrestle With Change

When Kohlberg Kravis Roberts announced that it was going public earlier this month via a deal with its Amsterdam-listed affiliate, almost a year after last summer's credit crunch took hold and the firm initially registered to go public, the move represented more than its next growth step. Its new plan to go public punctuates a larger point: the private equity business is changing.

KKR Plans New Public Mart Move

When executives of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts were asked by Sandler O'Neill & Partners analyst Michael Kim about the timing of the firm's new plans to go public in a conference call last week, KKR member Scott Nuttall answered with the grace of a gazelle.

BofA Grows Research Platform

Bank of America heeded investor demand by hiring nine additional analysts for its equity research division, the firm's head of equity research, Michael Rietbrock, told IDD.

The Floatation Equation

If the process of seeking out and seeding a young business is akin to a farmer raising crops and caring for them, then the trip to the public markets is a venture capitalist's own autumn harvest. These days, though, harvesting a young business has gotten tougher because of the credit market problems that started last summer within a subset of the US mortgage finance market. In the second quarter not one company was brought to the public markets by Wall Street brokerages that had been seeded by venture capitalists.

A Package Deal

Hicks Acquisition Co., a Dallas special purpose acquisition company established by private equity financier Thomas Hicks, reached a definitive agreement to go public with Graham Packaging Holdings in a $3.2 billion transaction with The Blackstone Group, marking one of the largest transactions to be executed between a blank check entity and industrial company.

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