CIT Group said Wednesday that it arranged a $220 million loan to help finance Elior SCA and Charterhouse Capital Partners‘ buy of TrustHouse Services Group. Charlotte, N.C.-based TrustHouse provides contract food services to the healthcare, education and corrections sectors.

Outdoor Channel Holdings said Friday it is merging with InterMedia Outdoors Holdings, which controls The Sportman Channel. Press reports pegged the deal value at $208 million in cash and stock. InterMedia Partners, the PE firm, owns InterMedia Outdoors. The Sportsman Channel is a cable TV network for outdoor enthusiasts. InterMedia will have a majority stake in IMOH and own, along with minority members of IMOH, 67.6%. Outdoor Channel stockholders are expected to own approximately 32.4% of IMOH. CIT Communications, Media & Entertainment is providing $150 million in financing. Lazard provided financial advice to Outdoor Channel Holdings.

CIT Partners has quietly sold Edgeview Partners back to its employees, peHUB has learned. CIT acquired the Charlotte, N.C.-based mid-market boutique consultancy in mid-2007.

CIT’s 2009 bankruptcy left Edgeview Partners in limbo, causing three of its partners to leave the firm, we reported in October. Before leaving, Co-founders Drew Quartapella and Matt Salisbury offered to buy Edgeview back from CIT, but the lending giant was unresponsive until recently. Yesterday Edgeview’s partners closed the deal to acquire the firm.

CIT sent peHUB the following statement:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – CIT Group Inc (CIT.N) has hired former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain as its new chief executive, the commercial lender said late on Sunday, wagering that the well-traveled executive can guide its post-bankruptcy turnaround. Thain, 54, immediately replaces interim CEO Peter Tobin, who will remain a director. Former CIT chief Jeff [...]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Commercial lender CIT Group Inc (CIT.N) on Tuesday named longtime director Peter Tobin as acting chief executive as the company’s board looks for a permanent successor to Jeffrey Peek, who retired as chairman and CEO on Friday. Tobin, 64, will continue to serve as a director while the board seeks to [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The chief financial officer of CIT Group Inc is retiring, adding another executive search for a board that is already looking for a chief executive officer.   CIT, which emerged from one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history earlier this month, is looking to re-establish itself as a lender to [...]

When CIT’s potential bankruptcy was pushed into the spotlight earlier this year, we ran a list of 133 LBO-backed companies which CIT has lent to in the past five years. In the spirit of sharing, we’ve posted it again!

CIT has served as a lead lender to 30-some middle market portfolio companies, but the firm’s reach as part of the lending club extends to mega-buyout deals like HCA, Dollar General and Dunkin Brands as well.

You can access and download the full list of CIT-led deals at Scribd: LBO-Backed Companies With CIT As the lead arranger

And I’ve pasted the entire list of 133 companies with CIT in its capital structure after the jump.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – CIT Group Inc, a lender to hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, as the global financial crisis left it unable to fund itself and the recession clobbered its loans. The bankruptcy, one of the largest in U.S. corporate history, has been widely expected for [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – CIT Group (CIT.N) is likely to file for bankruptcy in the coming days, analysts and experts said. The lender to small and medium-sized businesses is trying to restructure its debt, and is offering investors two options. One path would be getting its unsecured debt holders — who hold a total of [...]

Amid CIT’s bankruptcy scares and Carl Icahn drama, not much focus has been placed on the fate of Edgeview Partners, the mid-market boutique consultancy CIT acquired in mid-2007.

While Edgeview continues to do business, its founding partners Drew Quartapella and Matt Salisbury left in February. More recently, partner Bill Morrissett also departed.

According to the Charlotte Observer, Quartapella and Salisbury offered to buy the firm back, but CIT was unresponsive. The three men are subject to a non-compete period that was set when Edgeview originally sold to CIT. According two sources familiar with the firm, the non-compete expires in the middle of next year.

Meanwhile Edgeview’s remaining employees are waiting anxiously for the dust to settle around CIT. M&A advisory business has been slow in a credit crunch, and bringing in new deals with an unstable parent company doesn’t help.