Sentinel Capital Partners

Last updated
Sentinel Capital Partners
Company type Private
Industry Private Equity
Founded1994;30 years ago (1994)
Headquarters New York, New York, United States
Key people
David S. Lobel
John F. McCormack [1]
Products Mezzanine capital, Management Buyouts, Corporate Divestitures, Industry Consolidations, Going-Private Transactions, Leveraged Buyouts, and Growth Capital
Total assets $1.97 billion (assets under management) [2]
Number of employees
35+ [3]
Website www.sentinelpartners.com

Sentinel Capital Partners, L.L.C. is an American private-equity firm focusing on mid-market companies. [4] [5] [6] The company is headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1994 by David Lobel and John McCormack after working together at Salomon Smith Barney. [7]

Contents

Operations

Sentinel invests in companies through various private equity strategies including Leveraged Buyouts, Mezzanine capital, Management Buyouts, Corporate Divestitures, Industry Consolidations, Going-Private Transactions, and Growth Capital transactions in the United States and Canada. The firm has focused its investments in companies operating in the aerospace, defense, business service, consumer, distribution, food, restaurant, franchising, industrial and healthcare sectors. [8] [9]

Sentinel says it prefers to invest between $10 million and $75 million in businesses having enterprise values between $25 million and $250 million, and EBITDA between $7 million and $65 million. While most of its deal involve Sentinel being the majority-investor, it co-invests selectively. The firm seeks to exit its investments between five and seven years through alternative exit strategies, such as sales, mergers or recapitalizations, or an initial public offering. [10]

Investment funds

Sentinel invests through a series of private limited partnerships and its investors include a variety of pension funds, endowments, and other institutional investors. Since Sentinel's establishment in 1995, it has raised six private equity funds and one mezzanine capital fund.

Investors in Sentinel Funds include college and university endowments, foundations, state and government retirement systems, corporate pension plans, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, investment advisors, family offices, and Taft-Hartley plans located in the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Australia, and the Middle East. [11]

FundVintage
Year
Committed
Capital ($m)
Sentinel Capital Partners Fund VI2018$2,150 [12]
Sentinel Junior Capital I2018$460 [13]
Sentinel Capital Partners Fund V2013$1,300 [14]
Sentinel Capital Partners Fund IV2008$765 [15]
Sentinel Capital Partners Fund III2005$319 [16]
Sentinel Capital Partners Fund II1998$126 [17]
Sentinel Capital Partners Fund I1996$50

Controversy

Buffet Holdings Settlement

In 2010, the creditors of Buffets Holding sued Sentinel and its investment partner Caxton-Iseman Capital for “bilk[ing] Buffets of hundreds of millions of dollars" that lead to its insolvency. [18] Sentinel and CI Capital settled the lawsuit for more than $23 million. [19]

TGI Fridays

Sentinel and Triartisan Capital Partners acquired TGI Fridays in 2014 from Carlson a month after the company facing a nationwide collective action wage theft lawsuit. The company tried to prevent certification of an FLSA collective by settling with individual workers that alleged unpaid wages up to $91 million. [20] Eventually TGI Fridays settled in 2017 for over $19 million to over 28,000 workers, the largest wage and hour payout at the time. [21] [22] In 2018, TGI Fridays was also found to have failed to pay £59,348 to its U.K. staff. [23] [24]

In 2019, TGI Friday was sued in a proposed class-action lawsuit for selling potato skin chips that don't contain potato skins. [25] [26]

In April 2020, Sentinel's deal to take TGI Friday's public was called off due to "extraordinary market conditions" due to the coronavirus outbreak. [27] [28]

Past Investments

The firm has previously invested in franchise holders of some of the world's largest fast food chains such as Checkers and Rally's, Church's Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. [29] [30]

Other past holdings include Colson Group, The Cin Group, Critical Solutions International, Driven Performance Brands, Hollander Sleep Products, Luminaires, Marketplace Events, National Spine and Pain Centers, Playcore, Power Products, Quick Weight Loss Centers, Revenew, RotoMetrics, and WellSpring Pharmaceutical. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40]

Current Investments

Aerospace

Business Services

Consumer

Food / Restaurants

Healthcare

Industrials

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Providence Equity</span> American global private equity investment firm

Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. is a specialist private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education, and technology investments across North America and Europe. The firm specializes in growth-oriented private equity investments and has invested in more than 170 companies globally since its inception in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apax Partners</span> British private equity firm

Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of December 2023, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately $65 billion (USD). Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CVC Capital Partners</span> British private equity and investment advisory firm

CVC Capital Partners is a Luxembourg-based private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately €186 billion of assets under management and approximately €157 billion in secured commitments since inception across American, European and Asian private equity, secondaries, credit funds and infrastructure. As of 31 December 2021, the funds managed or advised by CVC are invested in more than 100 companies worldwide, employing over 450,000 people in numerous countries. CVC was founded in 1981 and, as of 31 March 2022, has over 850 employees working across its network of 25 offices throughout EMEA, Asia and the Americas.

In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.

Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. is an American private equity firm headquartered in Boston. The firm focuses on investing in middle market growth companies across various sectors, including financial technology, services, healthcare, technology, and business solutions.

Platinum Equity, LLC is an American private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995, headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Graphite Capital is a private equity firm focused on mid-market leveraged buyout investments, primarily in the UK. The group manages around £1.2 billion for institutional investors, with the most recent fund raising over £500 million in 2018. Since 1991, the firm has backed almost 100 management teams through various investments.

Lexington Partners is one of the largest manager of secondary acquisition and co-Investment funds in the world, founded in 1994. Lexington manages approximately $55 billion of which an unprecedented $14 billion was committed to the firm's ninth fund, the largest dedicated secondaries pool of capital ever raised at the time.

AlpInvest Partners is a global private equity asset manager with over $85 billion of committed capital since inception as of December 31, 2022. The firm invests on behalf of more than 450 institutional investors from North America, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BC Partners</span> Private equity firm

BC Partners is a British international investment firm with over $40 billion of assets under management across private equity, credit and real estate in Europe and North America. Its global headquarters are in London. The firm invests across all industries. BC Partners was founded in 1986 and has offices in New York, Paris and Hamburg. Since inception, BC Partners has completed 113 private equity investments in companies with a total enterprise value of €145 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CCMP Capital</span> American private equity investment firm that focuses on leveraged buyouts

CCMP Capital Advisors, LP is an American private equity investment firm that focuses on leveraged buyout and growth capital transactions. Formerly known as JP Morgan Partners, the investment professionals of JP Morgan Partners separated from JPMorgan Chase on July 31, 2006. CCMP has invested approximately $12 billion in leveraged buyout and growth capital transactions since inception. In 2007, CCMP was ranked #17 among the world's largest private equity funds.

Leonard Green & Partners, L.P. (LGP) is an American private equity investment firm founded in 1989 and based in Los Angeles. The firm specializes in private equity investments. LGP has invested in over 95 companies since its inception, including Petco and The Container Store.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Private equity in the 2000s</span>

Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco Partners</span> American private equity firm

Francisco Partners Management, L.P., doing business as Francisco Partners, is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. It was founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trivest</span> American private equity firm

Trivest Partners, L.P. is the oldest private equity firm in the Southeast U.S., founded in 1981, and focuses exclusively on founder and family-owned businesses. Trivest is headquartered in Miami, Florida with regional offices in Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Toronto. Trivest has provided "Private Equity for Founders" in the lower middle market through its flexibility in transaction structuring and related "Just Say No" program, which eliminates the typical pain points faced by founders looking to outside investment. The firm is largely industry-agnostic, but focuses on investments in the consumer, business services, healthcare, value-added distribution and niche manufacturing sectors.

Avista Capital Partners is an American private equity firm headquartered in New York City focused on growth capital and leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies in the domestic healthcare sector.

Irving Place Capital, formerly known as Bear Stearns Merchant Banking (BSMB), is an American private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies in the industrial, packaging, consumer and retail industries. Based in New York City, it has total committed capital across its funds of $5.9 billion.

North Street Capital, LP is a privately owned private equity and hedge fund firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut. The firm is run by Alex Mascioli, who founded the firm and is named after a street in town. The firm invests in leveraged buyouts and public and private equity. Mascioli is the company's Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hg (equity firm)</span> British private equity firm

Hg is a private equity firm targeting technology buyouts primarily in Europe and the US. Hg focuses on investments in technology and services sectors. It invests out of its 8th £2.5 billion core fund and its 2nd £575 million Mercury fund, targeting smaller technology buyouts, both raised in February 2017. Both funds were closed on their hard-caps and were more than 3x oversubscribed versus their targets, receiving strong re-ups from existing investors. The company raised its 1st time £1.5B Saturn large-cap fund in March 2018 and in 2020 raised $11B across three funds, Mercury 3, Genesis 9 and Saturn 2.

HGGC, LLC is an American middle-market private equity firm based in Palo Alto, California, with over $7 billion of cumulative capital commitments. Since its inception in 2007, HGGC has completed transactions with an aggregate transaction value of $50 billion. The firm was named 2014 M&A Mid-Market Private Equity Firm of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions magazine.

References

  1. "Sentinel Capital Partners, L.L.C.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2015-08-26.
  2. "Sentinel Capital Partners Investor Profile".
  3. "PRIVATE EQUITY MARKETPLACE : Firm Profile Report" (PDF). Wl1.peer3.60.com. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  4. "Sentinel Capital Partners to Move Office HQ to One Vanderbilt". Metro Manhattan Office Space. 2019-06-04. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  5. "Big Players Love the Lower Middle Market" . Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  6. "Sentinel Capital builds investments, brick-by-brick - Franchise Times - September 2016 - FranchiseTimes.com". www.franchisetimes.com. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  7. Meikle, Brad (1999-07-19). "Sentinel Capital Closes Second Fund at $126M -". Buyouts. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  8. "Sentinel | Private Equity | Lower | Middle Market | Management Buyouts". Sentinelpartners.com. Retrieved 2015-08-26.
  9. "Sentinel Capital Partners - Fund and Executive Details". Private Fund Data. 2017-09-27. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  10. "Sentinel Capital Partners, L.L.C.: Private Company Information - Bloomberg". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  11. FinSMEs (2018-01-26). "Sentinel Capital Partners Closes Two Private Equity Funds, at $2.6 Billion". FinSMEs. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  12. "Sentinel Capital Partners Closes $2.15 billion Sixth Private Equity Fund". PR Newswire.
  13. "Sentinel Capital Partners Closes $2.15 billion Sixth Private Equity Fund". PR Newswire.
  14. Jacobius, Arleen. "Sentinel Capital closes 5th fund with $1.3 billion". Pensions and Investments. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  15. "Sentinel Closes Fifth Fund at $1.3 billion". PitchBook.
  16. Ziobro, Paul. "Sentinel Sells Golf Cart Accessories Company to Audax". MarketWatch. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  17. Ziobro, Paul. "Sentinel Sells Golf Cart Accessories Company to Audax". MarketWatch. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  18. "Buffets Holdings' former owners sued by court-appointed trustee". Reuters. 2010-04-12. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  19. Appelbaum, Eileen; Batt, Rosemary (2014-03-31). Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street. Russell Sage Foundation. p. 69. ISBN   978-1-61044-818-5.
  20. Calder, Rich (2015-01-05). "TGI Friday's paying off employees to stop suit: lawyer". New York Post. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  21. Fickenscher, Lisa (2017-09-21). "TGI Friday's agrees to settle wage suit for more than $19M". New York Post. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  22. "TGI Friday's Gets Initial OK On Revised $19.1M Wage Deal - Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  23. Munbodh, Emma; Sembhy, Ravender (2018-03-09). "Named and shamed: The 179 companies fined for paying less than minimum wage". mirror. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  24. Cole, Matt (2018-05-18). "Why a Strike at TGI Friday's Is a Big Deal for Britain's Pissed Off Hospitality Workers". Vice. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  25. Inc, Midwest Communications. "Lawsuit says TGI Fridays potato skins contain no potato skins". Sports Radio KWSN. Retrieved 2020-05-31.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  26. "Troncoso v. TGI Fridays Inc. (1:19-cv-02735), New York Southern District Court". www.pacermonitor.com. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  27. "TGI Fridays will no longer go public in wake of coronavirus". Restaurant Dive. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  28. "SPAC scraps $380M TGI Friday's deal | PitchBook". pitchbook.com. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  29. Visconti, Alesia (2017-12-18). "Sentinel Capital Partners Acquires Captain D's". Franchise Dictionary Magazine. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  30. "Prior Companies Investment". www.sentinelpartners.com. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  31. "Sentinel Capital to put Checkers Drive-In Restaurants up for sale: Bloomberg - PE Hub". Pehub.com. 18 January 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  32. "Sentinel Capital invests in Altima Dental - PE Hub". Pehub.com. 3 January 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  33. "Chattanooga-based Playcore buys Worlds of Wow". Timesfreepress.com. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  34. "Sentinel Capital Partners acquires Quick Weight Loss Centers". Pehub.com. 23 August 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  35. "SONNY'S Enterprises Inc. partners with Sentinel Capital Partners - Professional Carwashing & Detailing". Carwash.com. 8 December 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  36. "Fazoli's names David Hasler CFO". Nrn.com. 6 February 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  37. Bissell, Jennifer (7 February 2017). "Maverick behind 'Doritos Locos Tacos' to join TGI Fridays". Financial Times . Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  38. "Sentinel acquires Revenew - PE Hub". Pehub.com. 20 July 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  39. "Sentinel recaps lighting products maker TLG - PE Hub". 8 June 2016.
  40. "Sentinel Capital buys Marketplace Events - PE Hub". Pehub.com. 28 January 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-10.