News
Fort Dearborn Completes Sale of SpecialtyChem to Resilience Capital
Chicago, Illinois – November 1, 2006
Fort Dearborn announced today that Resilience Capital Partners acquired SpecialtyChem Products Corporation (SPC) through a section 363 sale pursuant to SPC’s parent company’s recent bankruptcy filing.
SPC manufactures custom and proprietary specialty and fine chemicals for various industries including the specialty paper, polymer, agriculture and other industries in which high performance chemical intermediates are used. The Company is distinguished through the breadth of chemistries and service it provides its customer base which includes some of the most widely recognized companies in the industry. Despite continuing solid performance, SPC was hampered by the overcapacity, high cost structure and excess leverage of its parent ChemDesign Corp., and ultimately forced into bankruptcy to seek protection from its parent’s creditors.
In advising SPC in this case, Fort Dearborn Partners and Fort Dearborn Advisors leveraged their expertise working with companies undergoing financial and operational distress. The sale process Fort Dearborn devised and managed generated multiple visits and offers from potential acquirers and ultimately the transaction closed within 90 days of Fort Dearborn being retained. The Company’s estate ultimately received a valuation 40% higher than the initial stalking horse valuation. Fort Dearborn’s transaction expertise also enabled it to manage negotiations involving environmental matters typical of the chemical industry and to credibly defend heavily restated earnings.
About Fort Dearborn Advisors LLC
Fort Dearborn Partners is a leading profit improvement and turnaround consulting firm focused on middle market businesses. Fort Dearborn Partners develops and executes creative and effective strategies that enhance business performance. Fort Dearborn Advisors provides mergers and acquisitions advisory, debt and equity placements and financial restructuring services to companies with enterprise values above $10 million. Both of the Fort Dearborn companies have a wealth of experience and dedicated transaction groups in select industries including Automotive & Transportation Equipment, Business Services, Consumer Products & Retail, Food Processing & Distribution, Distribution, Industrial Growth, Metal Processing, Packaging & Printing and Special Situations. Fort Dearborn's clients include many leading privately held companies, private equity firms and public corporations.
Fort Dearborn's clients include many leading privately held companies, private equity firms and public corporations.
About Resilience Capital Partners LLC
Resilience Capital Partners LLC is a private equity firm specializing in acquisitions of lower middle market companies. The firm typically invests in underperforming and turnaround situations with opportunities for change of control and balance sheet restructuring. It invests in companies with severe operational challenges but which still have a good core business or product offering; privately held companies where ownership is no longer willing to reinvest in the enterprise or with a lack of adequate capital; companies suffering from insufficient management focus and resources; non-core divisions or subsidiaries of companies that would benefit from being decoupled from their parent to provide business autonomy and improved capitalization; and over leveraged companies that can benefit from extinguishing liabilities through a Chapter 11 proceedings, secured partly sale, or other out of court restructuring. The firm primarily invests in basic industry businesses with a focus on automotive, basic manufacturing, capital goods, chemicals, plastics, metals and metal fabrication, retail, transportation, packaging, and distribution.
