Everyone’s A few nostalgic writers’ favorite overprocessed snack food, Twinkies, is heading toward a resurrection. According to Bloomberg, the private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co are the front-runners in the bid to buy the cake business from Hostess, which shut down its factories last year after being unable to resolve a long-running labor dispute.
If the deal goes through, the private equity duo will also own Hostess Cupcakes, Ding Dongs, and Ho-Hos, adding to their existing food-related holdings. Apollo Global Management, run by art-loving billionaire Leon Black, is also an investor in the fast-food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., while C. Dean Metropoulos & Co owns Pabst Blue Ribbon. With Twinkies, the firms would have a truly disgusting three-course cross-portfolio meal, as well as a snack brand that has amazing customer loyalty. (As evidenced by the flood of lamentations when Hostess closed up shop.)
Despite all the hand-wringing farewells last year, Twinkies were never really going to go away. With such a well-known product, it was only a matter of time before some private equity firm or competing bakery eventually paid a decent sum for the Hostess name and began making them again. But it’s nice to see some deep-pocketed bidders step up so quickly. The sooner this deal (and the pending sale of the Drake’s brand) closes, the sooner we can all go back to not buying Twinkies again.
