Sentinel Capital Partners, L.L.C. is an American

private-equity firm A private equity firm or private equity company (often described as a financial sponsor) is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of a Startup company, startup or of an existin ...

focusing on mid-market companies. 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 Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York City. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and a very profitable firm on Wall Street du ...

Operations

Sentinel invests in companies through various private equity strategies including

Leveraged Buyouts A leveraged buyout (LBO) is the acquisition of a company using a significant proportion of borrowed money ( leverage) to fund the acquisition with the remainder of the purchase price funded with private equity. The assets of the acquired company ...

Mezzanine capital Mezzanine capital is a type of financing that sits between senior debt and equity in a company's capital structure. It is typically used to fund growth, acquisitions, or buyouts. Technically, mezzanine capital can be either a debt or equity ins ...

Management Buyouts A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management- and/or leveraged buyouts became noted phenomena of 1980 ...

, Corporate Divestitures, Industry Consolidations, Going-Private Transactions, and

Growth Capital Growth capital (also called expansion capital and growth equity) is a type of private equity investment, usually a minority interest, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new markets ...

transactions in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. The firm has focused its investments in companies operating in the aerospace, defense, business service, consumer, distribution, food, restaurant, franchising, industrial and healthcare sectors. 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.

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.

Controversy

Buffet Holdings Settlement

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

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. Eventually TGI Fridays settled in 2017 for over $19 million to over 28,000 workers, the largest wage and hour payout at the time. In 2018, TGI Fridays was also found to have failed to pay £59,348 to its U.K. staff. In 2019, TGI Friday was sued in a proposed class-action lawsuit for selling potato skin chips that don't contain potato skins. 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.

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 Checkers and Rally's LLC is an American fast food double drive-through chain franchise in the United States. The brand operates Checkers and Rally's restaurants in 28 states and the District of Columbia. They specialize in hamburger, hamburgers, ...

Church's Chicken Church's Texas Chicken is an American fast food restaurant chain that specializes in fried chicken and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The chain was founded as Church's Fried Chicken To-Go by George W. Church Sr. in April 1952, in San Ant ...

Pizza Hut Pizza Hut, LLC is an American multinational pizza restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by brothers Dan and Frank Carney. The chain, headquartered in Plano, Texas, operates 19,866 restaurants worldw ...

and

Taco Bell Taco Bell Corp. is an American multinational chain of fast food restaurants founded in 1962 by Glen Bell (1923–2010) in Downey, California. Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. The restaurants serve a variety of Mexican-inspired ...

. 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.

Current Investments

Aerospace

* Airboss Defense Group * Total Military Management

Business Services

* Apex Companies * Corporate Visions * Mobile Communications * New Era Technology * Revenew * Ubeo Business Services

Consumer

Cabi CABI (in various spellings) is an abbreviation that may refer to: * Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI, sometimes also referred to as CAB International), a UK-based nonprofit inter-governmental organisation for scientific res ...

* GSM Outdoors * Holley Performance Products, Inc. * Pet Supplies Plus

Food / Restaurants

Captain D's Captain Ds, LLC. is an American fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in seafood and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The chain was founded as Mr. D's Seafood and Hamburgers by Raymond L. Danner Sr. on August 15, 1969, in Don ...

* Fazoli Group *

Newk's Eatery Newk's Eatery is an American chain of fast casual cafés which operates over 100 restaurants in 13 states. Corporate history Newk's Eatery was founded in 2004 as Newk's Express Café by father and son chefs, Don and Chris Newcomb, with the firs ...

Healthcare

* Altima Dental * MB2 Dental * NY Bariatric Group * Midwest Eye Consultants

Industrials

* Colson Group * ECM Industries * Nekoosa * NSI Industries * SONNY's: The Carwash Factory

References

External links

*
Sentinel Capital Partners
at

Google Finance Google Finance is a website focusing on business news and financial information hosted by Google. History and Development Launch and Early Growth (2006–2010) Google Finance was launched in March 2006 as Google’s entry into online financ ...

Sentinel Capital Partners
at Hoovers {{Private equity and venture capital Private equity firms of the United States Companies based in New York City Financial services companies established in 1995