| TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P. | |
| Type: | Limited partnership |
| Industry: | Investment management |
| Predecessor: | Soros Private Equity |
| Founded: | April 2005 |
| Hq Location: | London and New York City |
| Num Locations: | London, New York City, Madrid, Frankfurt |
| Num Employees: | 102[1] |
| Areas Served: | North America, Europe |
| Key People: | Neal Moszkowski (co-chair and co-CEO) Ramez Sousou (co-chair and co-CEO) |
| Products: | Private equity funds, structured opportunities funds |
| Aum: | USD$13.7 billion |
TowerBrook Capital Partners, L.P. is an investment management firm[2] headquartered in London and New York City. TowerBrook spun out of Soros Fund Management in 2005 and became known for acquiring majority stakes in companies such as Jimmy Choo. Managing $13.7 billion in a number of private equity funds and structured opportunities funds, TowerBrook listed 30 active investments on its website as of 2020.
TowerBrook Capital Partners was formed as a spin-off of George Soros' equity management firm.[3] TowerBrook's co-founders, Neal Moszkowski and Ramez Sousou, had previously served as co-heads of Soros Fund Management's private equity arm, Soros Private Equity (SPEP); SPEP launched its first fund around 2000. SPEP was also an early investor in companies such as Eircom,[3] CSTV Networks, and Cablecom, which it sold to Liberty Global in 2005.[4] In April 2005,[3] Moszkowski and Sousou spun out SPEP from Soros Fund Management to establish TowerBrook Capital Partners in New York and London.
TowerBrook closed its TowerBrook Investors II LP fund at $1.3 billion in March 2006,[5] with George Soros contributing a significant amount.[6] Later that month, the fund purchased 67% of French engineering company GSE, which had an estimated value of €230 million.[7] In 2006,[8] TowerBrook purchased 75% of the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League team[9] for $150 million, also then purchasing the lease of the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The purchase made TowerBrook "the only private equity firm to own a share in a professional sports team," according to Sports Business Daily.[8] Also in 2006, TowerBrook raised $850 million from the sale of WellCare Health Plans, and a further $160 million from the disposal of Tradedoubler.[10] After acquisition of clothing company Odlo in 2006,[11] in 2007 TowerBrook purchased the designer shoe company Jimmy Choo[6] for £180 million.[12] In 2007, it invested in U.S. company Sound Inpatient Physicians.[13]
In 2008, TowerBrook raised $2.8 billion from investors for its third fund.[6] [14] According to Financial Times, the successful fundraising during a difficult economic period was noted as reflecting TowerBrook's sharp decline in its investing pace during a credit boom, while keeping debt for new investments "below the market average."[6] The fund's first deal was in 2009, when TowerBrook acquired 60% of Autodistribution Group for $139 million,[15] selling the stake six years later to Bain Capital.[16] In 2009, TowerBrook founded Haymarket Financial, or HayFin, initially as a corporate lender for small and medium businesses. Investors, including Sunseeker, Ronald Mourad Cohen, Lord Rothschild, and Future Fund, invested a total of $580 million in HayFin in September 2010, raising the lender's equity to about €1 billion.[17] TowerBrook sold its stake in HayFin in 2017.[18] In 2010, Towerbrook acquired the building company Monier[19] and sold Broadlane Group for $850 million.[20]
TowerBrook purchased the fashion retailer Phase Eight for £80 million in February 2011.[21] Three months later,[22] TowerBrook sold Jimmy Choo,[23] for a reported £500 million.[12] In 2012, TowerBrook sold part of its stake in the St. Louis Blues[24] to a consortium of investors, retaining a stake of around 50%.[25] Also in 2012, TowerBrook acquired a majority interest in the professional coaching business Vistage International.[26] In 2013, Towerbrook acquired scrap refiner Metallum for £295 million[27] and True Religion Apparel for $835 million.[9] That year, the company also sold Rave Cinemas to Cinemark.[28] In early 2013, The Financial Times wrote that TowerBrook was "defying a depressed fundraising market" by raising $3.5 billion for its new fund,[2] TowerBrook Investors IV.[29] Originally targeted at $3 billion, Fund IV became "considerably oversubscribed", receiving subscriptions of over $5 billion.[2]
In 2014, TowerBrook acquired Independent Clinical Services from The Blackstone Group for $408 million.[30] In June of that year, TowerBrook portfolio company Volution Group completed an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange,[31] diluting TowerBrook’s stake from 85%[32] to 61%.[33] In 2015, TowerBrook sold Phase Eight, then valued at £300 million, to the Foschini Group of South Africa,[21] and sold a 10% stake in itself to Wafra Investment Advisory Group "to free up capital to spend on the business."[34] In November 2015 TowerBrook secured over $800 million[35] for its new TowerBrook Structured Opportunities Fund,[36] exceeding its initial target of $600 million.[35] Also in 2015, Towerbrook purchased American Apparel business J.Jill[37] [38] for around $400 million,[39] and acquired a stake in U.S.-based Accretive Health for $200 million.[40] In March 2016, TowerBrook sold the majority of Van Geloven, a Dutch snack maker it had acquired the previous year, to McCain Foods.[41] In April 2016, TowerBrook announced it was partnering with U.S.-based health system Ascension Health Alliance to develop Ascension's healthcare technology business TRIMEDX.[42] By that summer, the firm had raised a total of $9.4 billion from investors in four private equity funds and one structured opportunities fund, designed to allow the firm to make minority investments.[43]
The firm completed eight investments in 2017,[43] including purchasing 47% of the aerospace company Aernova[44] and acquisition of loyalty services business Rewards Network.[45] TowerBrook retained 50% of J.Jill stock when taking it public on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2017.[46] Several months later, True Religion filed for bankruptcy protection, stating that TowerBrook would "swap debt into equity, handing them majority control."[47] The bankruptcy plan was approved by the courts in October 2017,[48] with True Religion's debt cut by $354 million.[46]
In June 2018, $4.25 billion was raised for a new Towerbrook buyout fund, Towerbrook Investors V. $1.05 billion was also raised for a Structured Opportunities Fund.[43] In 2018 and 2019, TowerBrook made significant investments in Validity Finance,[49] GBA Group,[36] Orchid Underwriters[50] and Studio Movie Grill.[51] TowerBrook listed 30 active investments on its website in 2020, among them KeHe Distributors, BevMo!, and OVH.[52] [51] In 2019, Towerbrook became the first "mainstream private-equity shop" to be certified as a B corporation.[53] In October 2019 it was reported that TowerBrook and Ascension Health were co-investing in the hospice company Compassus through Ascension TowerBrook Healthcare Opportunities (ATHO), a new joint venture.[54] In February 2020, the company was researching a sale of Independent Clinical Services.[55]
TowerBrook operates two fund types, private equity and structured opportunities. TowerBrook's website states that its private equity strategy is "based on the focused, proprietary sourcing of selected, control-oriented" investments[56] in large and midsize companies,[57] where the firm has “identified scope for significant further improvement and value creation."[56] The firm's Structured Opportunities Funds make minority investments in a range of businesses,[57] "principally via structured asset and structured equity investments."[56] The firm publishes an annual "Responsible Ownership Report",[58] and is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment Initiative (PRI).[59] Towerbrook is a certified B Corporation.[53]
TowerBrook is co-headquartered in London, England and New York City.[8] The firm also has offices in Madrid, Spain and Frankfurt, Germany,[56] [60] and a representative office in Amsterdam.[61] It previously had an office in San Francisco, California[62] and also in Munich.[56]
The firm is led by its founders, Neal Moszkowski, and Ramez Sousou, who are its co-chairs and co-CEOs,[9] and are based in New York and London, respectively.[5] TowerBrook's 23-member senior advisory board includes David J. Barger, Daniel Bernard, Anne Bouverot, Dave Checketts, Andrew Feldman, Trevor Fetter, Alan Fishman, Reuben Jeffery III, Marwan Lahoud and Gareth Penny.[63]
The TowerBrook Foundation is a charitable organization established by the partners of the firm in 2006.[64] It has donated to nonprofits such as City Year[65] and Habitat for Humanity.[66]