NY Shop To Buy Specialty Finance Co. From Credit Suisse

It looks like JLL Partners is in the process of buying Peachtree Settlement Funding, a specialty finance company, from DLJ Merchant Banking, according to a regulatory filing, sister magazine Buyouts has reported.

The Boynton Beach, Fla.-based company purchases high-quality deferred payment obligations, such as structured settlements, life settlements, sports contracts and lottery winnings from individual holdings, according to a November 2006 Credit Suisse press release announcing DLJ Merchant Banking’s acquisition of the company. The company has more than 390 full-time employees across offices in Florida, Norcross, Ga., and in London, according to its website. At the time of the deal, the company had originated more than $3.25 billion in assets since it its founded in 1996.

JLL Partners and Credit Suisse, the parent of DLJ Merchant Banking, received early termination of anti-trust review to proceed with the deal, according to a March 9th filing on the Federal Trade Commission website. Officials from JLL Partners and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

The deal would bolster JLL Partners’s portfolio of financial services companies, while raising questions about DLJ Merchant Banking’s co-investors in the original deal.

DLJ Merchant Banking and co-investors LLR Partners, a Philadelphia-based buyout shop, and GCP Capital Partners, then known as Greenhill Capital Partners, bought Peachtree in 2006 through a company they created called Orchard Acquisition Company, which is listed as the target in the filing. The deal was valued at $775 million, according to Peachtree’s website.

LLR Partners and GCP Capital still list Peachtree as a portfolio company but are not listed as sellers in the filing, so it’s not clear what their role is in the deal with JLL Partners. Executives at GCP Capital and LLR Partners either declined comment or did not reply to requests for comment.

Should the deal go forward, JLL Partners will invest out of its fifth fund, a $1.5 billion pool of capital raised in 2005, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Along with financial services, JLL Partners invests in health care services, medical products, food and consumer products, chemicals, broadcasting, transportation, automotive, industrial manufacturing, and distribution.

The firm’s portfolio includes J.G. Wentworth, a Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based buyer of deferred payments for structured settlements the firm bought in 2005. Earlier this year the firm agreed to buy ACE Cash Express Inc., an Irving, Texas-based owner and operator of check cashing stores in the United States.

Bernard Vaughan is a senior editor at Buyouts Magazine. Follow his tweets @BVaughanReuters. Follow Buyouts tweets @Buyouts. For information on how to subscribe, contact Greg Winterton at greg.winterton@thomsonreuters.com.