Stolberg Passes OffPotato Chip Company –

Stolberg, Meehan & Scano last month sold Cape Cod Potato Chips, a manufacturer of snack foods, to Charlotte, N.C.-based Lance, said Matt Meehan, a partner at the New York- and Denver-based firm.

Although terms of the transaction were not disclosed and Mr. Meehan declined to discuss the returns garnered for the firm by the sale, the financial press reported Lance paid approximately $30 million for the Hyannis, Mass.-based company.

Stolberg acquired the company in 1996 through its food industry platform SMS Brands after Cape Cod had largely been sent out to pasture by then owner Eagle Snacks Inc., a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch Cos. (BUYOUTS Dec. 8, 1997, p. 26). Partners at Stolberg at the time also declined to disclose the price tag, although the company was reported to have sold for $5 million-$2 million less than Eagle had laid down for the business in 1986.

At the time of the sale to Stolberg, Cape Cod’s production facility had been shut down, and the company had lost the majority of its retail shelf-space.

Today, Cape Cod has annual sales of approximately $30 million-still some $10 million short of the company’s sales peak during the early 1990s-and employs more than 180 people. Since the time of the buyout, Cape Cod-which was one of the first snack-food companies to begin producing kettle chips-has built its distribution network to entail 42 states, as well as Eastern Canada and Europe.