A federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved the sales of several major Hostess Brands’ product lines, including Twinkies, fetching about $800 million for all the various pieces of the bankrupt baking company and clearing the way for its eventual wind-down.
Chief among the deals that was cleared was the $410 million sale of Hostess’s snack cake brands, including Twinkies and Ho Hos, to Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Company. That transaction could lead to the return of the cream-filled treats to store shelves as soon as this summer.
Also approved were the sales of most of Hostess’s bread brands, including Wonder Bread, to Flowers Foods for about $360 million. Grupo Bimbo of Mexico won control of the Beefsteak bread line for $31.9 million after beating Flowers in an auction.
No rival bidders emerged for the snack cakes or the other bread products.
Approval of the sales, by Robert Drain of the Southern District of New York, was swift, before moving onto more prosaic matters like the review of fee payments to Hostess advisers.
Hostess is also set to sell off its Drakes line of snack cakes to McKee Foods in a $27.5 million bid.
