Privately-owned US group McKee Foods looks set to be the latest buyer of assets from bakery giant Hostess Brands.
Hostess, which is selling off assets and brands after deciding to wind down the business last year, said McKee was the only bidder in an auction for its Drake’s snack ckae brand.
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McKee bid US$27.5m for the Drake’s brand and “certain equipment”. Hostess will put the offer to the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on 9 April.
Hostess, meanwhile, has said it will start an auction for bread brands including Sweetheart and Standish Farms after receiving a number of offers.
Next week, Hostess will put three other deals up for court approval. Earlier this week, private-equity firms Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. agreed to pay $410m for the majority of Hostess’s snack cake business, including the Twinkies brand.
Earlier this month, US bakery group Flowers Foods struck a deal to buy the bulk of Hostess’s bread business, including the Wonder brand, for $360m. The US government, however, has objected to this deal. Last week, Attorney Preet Bharara, however, filed an objection in the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan this week, claiming the deal frees the buyer of liabilities and limits the government’s ability to regulate.
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By GlobalDataMarch has also seen Hostess agree to sell its Beefsteak brand to Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo for $31.9m.
The court will rule on these deals on Tuesday (19 March).
