Northstar Aerospace (USA) Inc. announced today in a court filing that it failed to receive any qualifying competing bids for its US assets by Friday’s submission deadline. As a result, the bankrupt company and its affiliates cancelled the auction scheduled for tomorrow and intend to seek final court approval of its proposed asset sale to its stalking horse bidders, related entities Heligear Acquisition Co. and Heligear Canada Acquisition Corporation. The stalking horse bidders are affiliates of Chicago-based private equity investment firm Wynnchurch Capital. The proposed cash purchase price is $70 million (subject to working capital adjustments), with $45.5 million of the purchase price allocated to Northstar’s US assets and the remaining amount allocated to its Canadian assets.
According to earlier court filings (links to the court filings are provided below), the debtors and their investment bankers at Harris Williams & Co. have marketed their assets multiple times since 2010. In the most recent marketing effort which culminated in the stalking horse bid, Harris Williams contacted 39 potential acquirers, of whom 35 signed NDAs (18 potential strategic acquirers and 17 potential financial acquirers). Six of the parties submitted non-binding letters of intent for substantially all of Northstar’s operating assets in both the US and Canada, one submitted a non0binding LOI for a possible recapitalization of Northstar and two submitted non-binding LOIs for Northstar’s Chicago facility only.
The notice filed today stating that no competing bids were received is embedded below. In addition, below is a list of links to view other court filings regarding the sale process:
- Asset Sale and Bid Procedure Motion
- Stalking Horse Agreement of Purchase and Sale
- Declaration of Jon Nemo of Harris Williams & Co. Regarding Bid Procedures and Sale Process
- Order Approving Bid Procedures
