Two catalog deals that were in the works earlier this year closed in April. Shareholders of New Britain, CT-based Moore Medical Corp. on March 30 approved the acquisition of the medical and surgical supplies cataloger by McKesson Corp., a San Francisco-based healthcare services provider. The deal, which closed April 1, ended several months of bids from other suitors, including Bristol, TN-based SJ Strategic Investments and Newton, MA-based Clinical Data.
And North Mankato, MN-based conglomerate Taylor Corp. won a Connecticut bankruptcy court bidding war for the assets of New Hartford, CT-based Executive Greetings, whose business-to-business stationery catalogs include Baldwin Cooke, The Brookhollow Collection, and U.S. Diary. Taylor paid $68.6 million in the deal, which was expected to close April 30.
Executive Greetings CEO George Ittner says he is “pleased that the company’s creditors have achieved a decent recovery through the sale process.” By getting more than $0.80 on the dollar for their debts, Executive Greetings’ secured debtors will fare better than they might have. That’s because the auction raised Taylor’s bid by $15.6 million from the original “stalking horse” bid of $53.0 million Taylor made on Dec. 18. The Section 363 auction required that subsequent bids must exceed Taylor’s bid by at least $1.8 million