Los Angeles private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners LLP completed its $1.3 billion buyout of Sports Authority Inc. last week and took the company private.

Shareholders of the Englewood, Colo.-based sporting goods retailer overwhelmingly approved the transaction in a special meeting where about 80 percent of the company’s shares voted. Stockholders will receive $37.25 in cash for each Sports Authority share.

Sports Authority’s management is staying in place and its headquarters is not moving. The company, which brought in $2.5 billion in sales last year, operates 402 stores in 45 states under the Sports Authority, Gart Sports and Sportmart names. Over the years, the company has grown through acquiring competing brands, including Oshman’s in 2001 and Gart Sports in 1998.

Leonard Green is one of the nation’s largest private equity firms with about $3.7 billion of capital under management. The firm has a history of making long-term investments, sometimes more than 10 years, in companies that are industry leaders.

Companies currently in Leonard Green’s investment portfolio include Internet florist FTD Group Inc., upscale retailer Neiman Marcus Group Inc., drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp., and map company Rand McNally & Co. Prior investments include pet supplies retailer PETCO Animal Supplies Inc. and Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp., another sporting goods chain.

Private Patina


Chef Joachim Splichal’s famed Patina Group, responsible for feeding visitors to such iconic L.A. cultural centers as the Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall, is heading out on its own.

Splichal and Nick Valenti, chief executive of New York-based Restaurant Associates, which the L.A.-based Patina Group merged with in 1999, announced last week that they are buying the Patina Group and Restaurant Associates’ restaurants from London-based parent

Compass Group. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.

“Joachim and I have a proven success record,” said Valenti in a statement. “We will continue expanding on the vision that brought us together in 1999, growing our existing businesses while continuing to develop new experiences for our guests in New York, Los Angeles and beyond.”

After the buyout, a yet-to-be-named, private corporate entity will be set up. The Compass Group, which will remain an investor and stay in control of the managing services, entertainment and sports divisions of Restaurant Associates, is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange.

The upcoming restaurant company will receive further funding from Tokyo-based restaurant and food service company Shidax Corp.

“Nick and Joachim have assembled a superior management team and their future plans directly contribute to Shidax’s mission of growing high quality restaurants and retail food service,” Ken Shida, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement.

In an interview last Thursday, Splichal said the current leadership of Patina Group isn’t changing. “We have a very small, energetic management team. We can compete in the marketplace,” he said. “We are becoming a small regional company, and I think that is important.”

Splichal and Valenti have been behind some of the most notable restaurants in their respective cities, Los Angeles and New York. Splichal’s crop of L.A. restaurants includes Patina, Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse, Caf & #233; Pinot and Zucca Ristorante. Valenti’s New York restaurants include Brasserie, Caf & #233; Centro, Naples 45 and the Sea Grill.

All together, Valenti told the New York Times last week, the new company will own about three dozen restaurants. He added that the company will have $200 million in annual revenue and will look to expand its key concepts, Patina and Naples.

Even with the Patina Group escaping from under its umbrella, the Compass Group, one of the world’s largest employers, will continue to have a presence on the L.A. dining scene. Starting in 1998, the company formed a strategic partnership with Wolfgang Puck Catering, known for scooping caviar gobbled up by celebrities and their friends at the annual post-Oscars Governors Ball.

Buying Uniforms


Aramark Corp., a Philadelphia-based company with extensive local operations, has received a $5.8 billion buyout offer from a group composed of private equity firms and its chief executive.

Joseph Neubauer, the chief executive, and funds managed by GS Capital Partners, JP Morgan Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Warburg Pincus LLC want to take the company private for $32 a share. In a letter responding to the bid, Eminence Capital, the company’s second largest external shareholder, deemed that price inadequate and declared Aramark is worth at least $40 per share.

Regardless of takeover price, any newly private company will gain control of Aramark Uniform Services, the company’s division based in Burbank. Aramark’s uniform and apparel business is the second largest in the United States, generating more than $1.5 billion in rental and direct marketing revenues last year.

Aramark has expanded its uniform operations in the Southern California region in recent years. In 2004, the company acquired Santa Ana-based L & N; Uniform Supply, which rents, leases and sells uniforms and career wear to customers in the Southern California and Salt Lake City areas, for $30 million.

Aramark’s roots are in Southern California, where it started in the 1930s providing vending services to plant employees in the aviation industry. Later, the company went public in 1960 and expanded its services to include the food business that it is recognized for most today. Aramark doles out hot dogs and hamburgers at some of the country’s premier universities and stadiums.

Travel Technology


LeisureLink Inc. might be in the vacation business, but the company isn’t sitting back and relaxing.

Instead, after receiving $5 million in venture capital funding from Mission Ventures and Clearstone Venture Partners, LeisureLink is ramping up. The money will pay for the company to expand its engineering and marketing teams.

Through its electronic distribution platform, LeisureLink connects vacation rental and time-share suppliers to travelers. That platform is set up so travel agents can make time-share and vacation rental reservations through their everyday network, the most recognizable of which is the Sabre Travel Network. In the next several months, the company also plans to reach out directly to consumers with its own Web site.

“If you have ever tried to book a vacation rental, if you want to go to Mammoth or Vail with your family, it is really hard,” said Erik Hovanec, chief executive of LeisureLink, which will soon be moving to Pasadena from Altadena. “There is no central organized area where you can go to find vacation rentals. Our mission is to organize that market.”

Kelly Tompkins, who developed the initial Sabre Web reservation system and hosting services for travel agencies, started LeisureLink in 2002. Since its founding, the company received angel capital from Tech Coast Angels and Pasadena Angels. Hovanec, a member of Pasadena Angels and a former general manager at Green Dot Corp., became chief executive this year.

The task now is to convince time-share and vacation rental suppliers that signing up with LeisureLink will boost their revenues by filling up rooms. The company says that it sold over 70 percent of the rooms last July at the Barefoot Golf Resort in Myrtle Beach for operator Tartan Management. For its service, Hovanec explained LeisureLink typically charges a net rate often around 30 percent on each reservation made and takes care of the travel agent commission out of

its cut.

“It is imperative for these companies to maximize their revenue and to price discriminate. The airlines have done it very well,” said Hovanec. “The goal is to manage the inventory and to sell out the whole inventory to maximize their revenue. That is the core value proposition to suppliers.”

Already, he said the company has secured a wide range of clients. Its revenues have increased 80 percent to 100 percent quarter-over-quarter through last year and into the early part of this year.

Hovanec sees revenues accelerating even faster in the near future, but acknowledged that LeisureLink has some competition. Companies such as Austin, Texas-based WVR Group are aiming at the time share market.

“Our mission is to dominate the marketplace,” he said. “That allows those 10,000 global suppliers to meet consumers at a fair price and consummate a transaction. This is a very large market. There are literally billions and billions of dollars spent on leisure.”

Staff reporter Rachel Brown can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 224, or at

[email protected]

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