| Dean Anderson |
Questor Management Co.'s Questor Partners Fund II has tapped Wells Fargo Foothill to lead the debt financing that will back its acquisition of Chef Solutions, the non-airline food business of LSG Lufthansa Service Holding. Questor will bridge the purchase price, which is not disclosed, and Foothill will take it out with an asset-based financing, according to Dean Anderson, a managing director with Questor. "Because it's a troubled company and losing money, it really only sets up for an asset-based type financing," Anderson said. "There are a lot of assets here--real estate, machinery and equipment." Questor spoke with Fleet Capital, CIT Group and a number of others regarding the financing, Anderson noted. "We talked to a lot of the traditional asset-based lenders and we have a good relationship with Foothill and they were comfortable with the credit." he said. "For some this was too small. But we just kind of zeroed in on Foothill."
Lufthansa's subsidiary Sky Chefs is a catering business for the airline industry. Lufthansa made a strategic decision around 2000 to branch out into non-airline food around the prepared food concept. The company bought seven or eight businesses and rolled them up into the Chef Solutions entity, Anderson said. But just as Lufthansa was putting the business together, Sept. 11, 2001 hit and the airline industry went into turmoil. Sky Chefs' business started to decline as people were flying less and the airlines were putting less food on the planes. The company then decided to turn its core attention to airline-related businesses and sell what is not core to the airline business, he added.