Abacus Finance Group was the Administrative Agent and Sole Lead Arranger for certain senior secured credit facilities to support the add-on acquisition of Caption Colorado by VITAC, a portfolio company of The Gores Group.
Caption Colorado employs more than 300 professionals and provides captions for more than 500 events each day, with real-time, online, and offline captioning for scheduled news broadcasts, breaking news broadcasts, weather emergencies, television, feature films, event centers, stadiums and arenas, corporate meetings, training and seminars, voice relay captioning, webcasts, conventions and conferences, and investor relations calls. . The company was founded in 1991 and is headquartered near Denver in Greenwood Village, CO (www.captioncolorado.com).
VITAC is the largest provider of closed captioning in the country, responsible for captioning approximately 300,000 live-program hours per year (over 600 hours per day), and creating verbatim, precisely-timed captions for 57,000 pre-recorded programs per year. VITAC’s customers include every major broadcast network, most cable channels, program producers, corporations, and government agencies, among others. VITAC was founded in 1986 as Caption America and was renamed VITAC (Vital Access) in 1993. The company has approximately 325 employees and is headquartered southwest of Pittsburgh in Canonsburg, PA (www.vitac.com).
Abacus was the Administrative Agent and Sole Lead Arranger for $18 million in senior secured credit facilities to support the carve-out by Gores of VITAC from Merrill Corporation in February 2016. “This was our second transaction with a firm that has an impressive record of carve-out and integration transactions. They are easy to work with, and they place a high value on our flexibility and speed – key aspects of what we call our Total Partnership Approach™,” said Tim Clifford, President and CEO of Abacus. Other Abacus team members involved in this transaction included Timothy Wong, Jonathan Choa and Joseph Lee.
Abacus provides cash flow senior financing to private equity-sponsored, lower-middle market companies that have EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million. Debt facilities can be as large as $60 million with a typical hold size ranging from $10 million to $30 million. Abacus is an affiliate of New York Private Bank & Trust, the holding company for Emigrant Bank, founded in 1850. Abacus is based in New York (www.abacusfinance.com).
“We were delighted to partner with Abacus again as we continue to grow our investment in VITAC,” said Gores Principal Anthony Chirikos. “Once again, Abacus’ speed, certainty, and industry knowledge showed itself in an efficient execution.”
The Gores Group makes control investments in non-core, underperforming or undervalued businesses in the United States and Europe. The firm maintains an in-house team of over 60 M&A and operating professionals in the US and Europe. The Gores Group was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Los Angeles with additional offices in Boulder, CO and London, UK (www.gores.com).
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | January 31, 2017
