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

private-equity firm A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...

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. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street dur ...

Operations

Sentinel invests in companies through various private equity strategies including

Leveraged Buyouts A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money ( leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loa ...

Mezzanine capital In finance, mezzanine capital is any subordinated debt or preferred equity instrument that represents a claim on a company's assets which is senior only to that of the common shares. Mezzanine financings can be structured either as debt (typicall ...

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 buyout became noted phenomena of ...

, 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 investment, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new mark ...

transactions in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. 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 CI Capital Partners (formerly Caxton-Iseman Capital) is a private equity firm founded in 1993 by Frederick Iseman and based in New York City that specializes in middle market leveraged buyouts. It is estimated that CI Capital Partners manages a ...

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 Drive-In Restaurants, Inc. is a chain of double drive-thru restaurants in the United States. The company operates Checkers and Rally's restaurants in 28 states, and the District of Columbia. They specialize in hamburgers, hot dogs, fren ...

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. on April 17, 1952, in San ...

Pizza Hut Pizza Hut is an American multinational restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by Dan and Frank Carney. They serve their signature pan pizza and other dishes including pasta, breadsticks and dessert at d ...

and

Taco Bell Taco Bell is an American-based 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 foods, includi ...

. 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 The Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based Apex Companies is a holding company that at different times since its founding had retail, online retail, commercial and residential real estate development, real estate management, specialty, wholesale and manufact ...

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

Consumer

* Cabi * GSM Outdoors * Holley Performance Products, Inc. *

Pet Supplies Plus Pet Supplies Plus (also styled Pet Supplies "Plus"), founded in 1988 in Redford, Michigan in the United States, is a privately held pet supply retailing corporation with a major presence in the US. As of 2005, it was the third largest specialty p ...

Food / Restaurants

Captain D's Captain D's 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 Donelson, T ...

* 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

Industrials

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

References

External links

*
Sentinel Capital Partners
at

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Sentinel Capital Partners
at Hoovers Private equity firms of the United States Companies based in New York City Financial services companies established in 1995 {{US-private-equity-company-stub