Hostess Brands is an American-based bakery company formed in 2013. It owns several bakeries in the United States that produce snack cakes under the Hostess and Dolly Madison brand names and its Canadian subsidiary, Voortman Cookies Limited, produces wafers and cookies under the Voortman brand name. It is headquartered in Lenexa within Johnson County, Kansas. Its main operating subsidiaries are Hostess Brands, LLC, and Voortman Cookies Limited.

History

The Hostess Brands company formed in June 2013, having started as a venture by

Apollo Global Management Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...

and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company, to acquire assets from

Old HB Old HB, Inc., known as Hostess Brands from 2009 to 2013 and established in 1930 as Interstate Bakeries Corporation, was a wholesale baker and distributor of bakery products in the United States. Before its 2012 closure and liquidation, it owned ...

, the company formerly known as Interstate Bakeries and Hostess Brands Inc. Apollo and Metropoulos purchased certain cake business assets of Old HB – which had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and bankruptcy liquidation – through the bankruptcy court, ultimately assuming the name, branding and much of the product line of the former Hostess Brands. These assets included four bakeries, located in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it o ...

;

Emporia, Kansas Emporia is a city in and the county seat of Lyon County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 24,139. Emporia lies between Topeka and Wichita at the intersection of U.S. Route 50 with Interstates 33 ...

;

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mar ...

; and Schiller Park, Illinois. The Schiller Park facility later closed in October 2014. In July 2016, Hostess announced it would be going public in an offering valuing the company at $2.3 billion. The deal would see Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company become minority owners, with The Gores Group taking a majority ownership position in the firm. Instead of making an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

, Gores acquired Hostess via a

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gov ...

, under a

special-purpose acquisition company A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making it public without going through the traditional ...

process. Gores Holdings subsequently renamed itself Hostess Brands, Inc., changing its

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...

from GRSH to TWNK, after the

Twinkie A Twinkie is an American snack cake, described as "golden sponge cake with a creamy filling". It was formerly made and distributed by Hostess Brands. The brand is currently owned by Hostess Brands, Inc. (), having been formerly owned by pri ...

brand snack cake. In April 2018, the company announced that Andy Callahan would take over as CEO in May 2018.

Mergers and acquisitions

On June 14, 2016, Hostess acquired Superior Cake Products, making it the company's first acquisition since the Hostess brand returned in 2013. On February 1, 2018, Hostess acquired the Big Texas and the

Cloverhill Bakery Cloverhill Bakery is a producer of baked goods primarily sold through vending machines throughout North America. It also produces the buns used by McDonald's. Cloverhill was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1961 as a small family owned vending com ...

brands from

Aryzta ARYZTA AG is a food business based in Zurich with operations in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It is incorporated in Switzerland and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (the Zurich Stock Exchange). It discontinued its listing on Eur ...

. On August 1, 2019, Hostess announced that it was selling Superior Cake Products to Sara Lee Frozen Bakery for $65 million. On December 2, 2019, Hostess announced that it was purchasing Voortman Cookies Limited, a Canadian company, from Swander Pace Capital for approximately US$320 million (C$425 million). The transaction closed in January 2020.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.hostessbrands.com Bakeries of the United States Snack food manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Kansas City, Missouri American companies established in 2013 Food and drink companies established in 2013 2013 establishments in Missouri Companies listed on the Nasdaq American brands Special-purpose acquisition companies 2016 initial public offerings

History

Mergers and acquisitions

See also

References

External links