Castle Harlan Australian Affiliate and Other Investors Complete Sale of Drug, Health and Beauty-Aid Retailer.NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Castle Harlan, Inc., the New York-based private-equity investment firm, announced today that a group of investors, including its Australian affiliate, CHAMP (Castle Harlan Australian Mezzanine Partners), has sold New Price Retail, a leading pharmaceutical, health and beauty-aid retailer, to Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (API) in a transaction valued at approximately A$167 million. The consortium had acquired New Price Retail in a management buyout last February for A$107 million. Besides CHAMP, the other investors were ABN AMRO ABN AMRO Algemene Bank Nederland-Amsterdam Roterdam Bank (Dutch bank) Capital, Investec Wentworth Private Equity and management. The investor group also announced that Jeff Sher, New Price's chief executive officer, will step in as chief executive of API, a position that has been vacant since the resignation of David Young David Young could refer to:
An arrangement of characters (usually letters) representing a particular security listed on an exchange or otherwise traded publicly. When a company issues securities to the public marketplace, it selects an available ticker symbol for its securities which investors API. Castle Harlan said that the sale of New Price resulted in CHAMP's offshore group of investors realizing a return of US$13.5 million on its investment of US$8.3 million, or 1.6 times its original investment in less than a year. New Price has more than 300 stores in Australia, approximately 140 of which are company-owned. For the most recent 12-month period, it had revenues of A$371.8 million, up 17.7 percent from the corresponding period a year earlier. Castle Harlan, founded in 1987, is a leading New York private-equity investment firm, investing primarily in controlling interests in the buyout and development of middle-market companies in North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. and Europe. In 2000, it was a co-founder of CHAMP, which is the successor to one of Australia's oldest and largest private-equity investment firms dating back to 1987. CHAMP currently manages or advises approximately A$850 million in funds for private-equity investment in the Australasian region, including the CHAMP I funds, with A$500 million in committed capital. The CHAMP I funds were raised in 2000 and are now approximately 60 percent invested. Earlier this year, CHAMP sold Penrice, the largest producer of soda ash in Australia, and realized a return of three times its original investment. In August, CHAMP successfully conducted an initial public offering of another of its portfolio companies, Bradken, Ltd., a manufacturer of mining and rail products. The offering, 102.08 million shares at A$2.40 per share on the Australian Stock Exchange (symbol: BKN BKN Broken (aviation - very cloudy) ), raised A$245 million. The shares closed today at A$3.10. CHAMP's other portfolio companies include Austar United Communications Limited, Australia's second largest pay-TV company, with more than 427,000 subscribers, and Australian Pacific Paper Products, Australia's second largest manufacturer and distributor of disposable diapers and adult incontinence products. CONTACT: Charles Storer of Robert Marston Corporate Communications, Inc., +1-212-371-2200, for Castle Harlan, Inc. |
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