Ancor and Merit Acquire Tom Cat Bakery

Ancor Capital Partners and Merit Capital Partners have acquired Tom Cat Bakery Inc., a New York-based commercial bakery specializing in artisan breads and sweet goods. No financial terms were disclosed. Tom Cat was advised on the deal by McGladrey Capital Markets.

PRESS RELEASE

Tom Cat Bakery, Inc., an artisan bread and sweet goods commercial bakery located in New York, has been acquired by Ancor Capital Partners and Merit Capital Partners. Transaction terms were not disclosed.

McGladrey Capital Markets initiated the transaction, sourced the buyer, led the negotiations and acted as exclusive financial advisor to Tom Cat Bakery.  New York-based Lowenstein Sandler PC acted as the legal advisor to Tom Cat Bakery and Hunton & Williams LLP in Dallas served as lead deal counsel for the buyers.

About Tom Cat Bakery, Inc.

Tom Cat Bakery, established in 1987, is the premier supplier of freshly-baked artisan bread and sweet-goods products to more than 850 customers located primarily in New York City. Within the upscale food industry, Tom Cat is nationally recognized as one of the founders of the artisan bread segment and one of the few such bakeries to scale up the concept successfully. The company’s customer list includes some of the most famous white-tablecloth restaurants in Manhattan, a variety of upscale hotels, specialty food retailers, casinos in Atlantic City, and other food service companies.

Within its fresh artisan bread segment, Tom Cat currently makes about 20 different kinds of bread dough (sourdough, white, rye, seven-grain, etc.) into 196 different products and shapes. In 2005, Tom Cat started producing frozen bread on a limited basis to satisfy market demand and to fill its production capacity during open oven time. Today the company makes 39 different kinds of frozen breads.

In addition to fresh and frozen artisan bread, Tom Cat has also built a reputation as a high-quality supplier of sweet-goods products. The company currently makes 122 different kinds of sweet goods including a variety of muffins, fresh loaf cakes, yogurt cakes, coffee cakes, scones, Danish pastries, croissants, brownies, cookies, and fruit and nut bars.

Since most of the company’s products must be consumed the same day they are made, sometimes within hours of being baked, company management built a distribution infrastructure that boasts nearly a 99-percent error-free delivery rate. The company makes between 450 and 650 deliveries per day in the New York City metro area and is the only artisan bakery in New York City that does not use any outside distributors.

About Ancor Capital Partners

Ancor Capital Partners is a private equity firm specializing in the acquisition of lower middle market companies. The firm primarily invests in recapitalizations of privately held manufacturing and distribution businesses within the United States. It does not invest in real estate, energy exploration and production, or highly-cyclical industries. The firm invests in companies with enterprise values between $25 million and $150 million and EBITDA between $5 million and $25 million. Ancor Capital Partners was founded in 1994 and is based in Fort Worth, Texas.

About Merit Capital Partners

Merit Capital Partners is a private equity firm specializing in mezzanine and equity investments in middle market companies. It was formerly known as William Blair Mezzanine Capital Partners. The firm participates in management buyouts, shareholder liquidity, recapitalizations, acquisitions and growth financings, corporate divestitures, ESOP financings, fundless and small fund sponsored transactions, and unsponsored transactions. It prefers to invest in companies engaged in the manufacturing, distribution, logistics and services industries. It typically invests between $15 million and $60 million in companies with minimum revenues of $20 million and an EBITDA of at least $5 million. The firm structures its investment as a five to seven year subordinated debt instrument with equity ownership provided by a warrant or the outright purchase of common or preferred stock. Merit Capital Partners was founded in 1993 and is based in Chicago.