Ever since Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Sno Balls, and other chemical-filled pastries, closed its doors last week, speculation has swirled about who, if anyone, would step in to save the company and bring processed junk back to the nation’s supermarket shelves.
That hero may have arrived in the form of Marc Leder, the CEO of Sun Capital, and better known as the sex-party-loving hedge fund guy who hosted the famous “47 percent” fund-raiser for Mitt Romney last May. Fortune reports that Leder wants to make a bid for Hostess, which he believes “would be a relatively easy company to restart.”
A Leder-led Hostess could go very wrong. As the Times reported in January, roughly one out of every five companies Sun Capital has invested in — including well-known restaurant chains like Friendly’s — have gone bankrupt.
But, remember: Hostess is already bankrupt, meaning that the worst Sun Capital could do would be to fail to restore it to its former glory.
The best it could do, of course, would be to revive Hostess and roll out a successful line of 47-percent-themed pastries: Deadbeat Ding Dongs, Takers Cakes, Homeless Ho-Hos, Victimuffins, Sno Personal Responsibility Balls. You get the idea.
Update: Hostess and its bakers union (the one whose strike led to the shutdown) have reportedly agreed to enter mediation to try to prevent a permanent liquidation of the company. Meaning that, while the dream of a Sun Capital-led Twinkie factory is still alive, the company may try to save itself first.
