The story
The Hostess Brands company formed in June 2013, having started as a venture by Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company, to acquire assets from Old HB, 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; Emporia, Kansas; Indianapolis, Indiana; 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, Gores Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed company, acquired Hostess via a spin-off, under a special-purpose acquisition company process. Gores Holdings subsequently renamed itself Hostess Brands, Inc., changing its ticker symbol from GRSH to TWNK, after the Twinkie brand snack cake.
In April 2018, the company announced that Andy Callahan would take over as CEO in May 2018.
The J.M. Smucker Company agreed to acquire Hostess Brands for $5.6 billion in a cash and stock deal on September 11, 2023. The acquisition was completed on November 7, 2023.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hostess Brands, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7