Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management LLC won the majority of Hostess Brands’ snack cake business, Flowers Foods Inc. got the majority of the bread business and United States Bakery, McKee Foods and Grupo Bimbo got smaller pieces of the bankrupt former leading national baker. Grupo Bimbo was perhaps the only surprise.
Bid openings and bankruptcy court approvals came in March. In all, more than $800 million was raised to pay off secured creditors and to allow the final wind-down of the company.
Apollo and Metropoulos will pay $410 million to purchase the Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs and Donettes snack cakes brands plus five bakeries and certain equipment. Apollo and Metropoulos were the “stalking horse” bidders from the very start, and no other suitors emerged. Metropolous, by the way, until 2007 was the former lead investor in Pinnacle Foods, which went public on March 28 (you can read about the IPO in our coverage).
Flowers Foods was another unopposed stalking horse, agreeing to pay $360 million for the majority of the bread business assets, including 20 bakeries, 38 depots and other assets.
Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV emerged as the winning bidder for assets related to Hostess’ Beefsteak bread business at the conclusion of a Feb. 28 auction. Bimbo beat out Flowers with a bid of $31.9 million for those assets.
The Drake's snack cake business was awarded to McKee Foods, which bid $27.5 million. United States Bakery, better known as Franz Family Bakeries, got the Sweetheart, Standish Farms, Grandma Emilie's and Eddy's bread businesses for $30.9 million.
See this timeline of events as reported on FoodProcessing.com:
