Fairmont buys beef supplier for $127m

Yorba Linda, California-based Fairmont Capital has bought Bridgeview, Illinois-based beef supplier Stampede Meat for $127 million (€95 million).

Also taking part in the deal were Stampede’s management team, Sankaty Advisors, the credit affiliate of Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based private equity firm PNC Mezzanine Capital. Stampede’s key executives, including its president Edward Ligas and its chairman Joe Ligas, will remain significant shareholders of the company.

Fairmont Capital in meat supplier deal

The Ligas brothers’ family founded Stampede thirteen years ago. The company provides a frozen, ready-to-cook and fully-cooked products, Michael Gibbons, the president of Fairmont, said in a statement. Its clients come from the restaurant, grocery and home delivery markets.

Founded in 1986, Fairmont invests in middle market consumer businesses. The made the first close on its first discretionary institutional buyout fund, Fairmont Capital Private Equity LP, in January. The fund has a target of $125 million.

Another private equity-owned meat processing plant made news recently. Officials of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security raided six meat processing facilities of Swift & Company, a Greeley, Colorado-based processor of fresh beef and pork and a portfolio company of Dallas, Texas-based HM Capital Partners. The raid resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 people, who were charged with “immigration violations” of being undocumented immigrants who allegedly used Social Security cards, birth certificates and other documents to assume the identities of actual US citizens. The company hired JPMorgan to help it asses its financial options in January.