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American Capital exited its investment in Biddeford Real Estate Holdings in the third quarter of 2006.

American Capital Provides Details of $46 Million of Total Net Realized Gains in Third Quarter

Bethesda, MD –-December 7, 2006 - American Capital Strategies Ltd. (Nasdaq:ACAS) announced today the details of $46 million of total net realized gains it recognized from portfolio investments in the third quarter of 2006.  Included in this amount were net realized gains of $106 million from the complete or substantial exit of 13 portfolio companies for total proceeds of $494 million. [more... ]

Workers Ecstatic To Take Over Mill
Biddeford, ME., - Rita Lachance has gone to work in the mills every day for the past 46 years. Monday she'll return to her job as pattern-maker at Biddeford Textile but with one important difference -- she'll be going to work for herself. Lachance and her 370 co-workers Friday became 33 percent owners in the new Biddeford Textile Corp. The workers' union, local investors, mill management and a Maryland-based investment banking firm purchased the electric blanket shell manufacturer from Sunbeam for $10.5 million. [more...]

Sunbeam Signs Agreement to Sell Its Biddeford, Maine Textile Facility
DELRAY BEACH, FL., - Sunbeam Corporation announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Biddeford, Maine textile facility to a group of investors including UNITE, the union which represents the employees of the Biddeford facility. The investor group also includes American Capital Strategies, an investment banking firm specializing in divestitures of businesses from Fortune 1000 companies in ESOP-structured corporate transactions, and an investment group led by Michael Liberty, a Maine businessman. The Llama Company, an Arkansas-based investment bank owned by Alice Walton, has provided investment banking services to the main investor group. The Biddeford operation makes blanket shells for the Company's electric blankets and heated throws. [more...]

ACS Teams Up With Employees To Buy Biddeford Textile
Portland, ME., - American Capital Strategies completed its 26th employee buyout by teaming up with the company’s management and employees and an investment group to complete the purchase of the Biddeford Textile Division from Sunbeam Corporation. The new company has simultaneously entered into a 5-year agreement to supply Sunbeam’s Electric Blanket Division. The sale was completed on May 9th in Portland, Maine. The new company will be called Biddeford Textile Corporation. [more...]

Saving Jobs and a Heritage – The Making of Biddeford Textile Corporation
In May 1997, American Capital Strategies (NASDAQ Symbol = “ACAS”) teamed up with a Maine investment group and the workers and management of Biddeford Textile Company to acquire the company from its corporate parent, Sunbeam Corporation. The transaction was structured and managed by American Capital, who provided $595,000 in equity and arranged $11.5 in total financing. The acquisition rescued the manufacturer of electric blanket shells from becoming a casualty in the corporate-wide downsizing by Sunbeam CEO “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap. It also created a one-third employee-owned company, Biddeford Textile Corporation, saving 370 jobs and renewing the life of a business that had been a mainstay of the local economy since the mid-nineteenth century. [more...]

Downsized, but Not Out: A Mill Towns Tale
BIDDEFORD, Me. -- For more than a century, outsiders controlled the economic destiny of the men and women who toiled in the textile mills of this coastal town south of Portland. Whether those who held this power were faceless Boston bankers, Southern textile brokers or Wall Street portfolio managers didn't matter much to the millworkers. Owners came and went, and the only visible sign of each transition was a new company name printed on payroll checks. [more...]

Employee Buyout Considered for Biddeford Textile Company
York County, ME., Portland Real Estate Developer Michael Liberty may be among several parties negotiating an employee buyout of the Biddeford Textile Company. The Portland Businessman has attended three meetings held by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees over the last two weeks and an article in the March 9 edition of the New York Times said Liberty is interested in "a large stake in a new company that would buy the plant from Sunbeam." [more...]

Workers Back Plan to Buy Plant
BIDDEFORD - The Biddeford Textile Co.'s union workers have voted "nearly unanimously" to back a proposed deal that would give them an ownership stake in the nation's only electric-blanket manufacturer. About 300 workers met with union leaders and investment banking officials from American Capital Strategies for three hours at Biddeford City Hall Sunday. [more...]

Biddeford Textile Workers OK Buyout
BIDDEFORD. ME., - Workers at Biddeford Textile Co. have unanimously backed a proposal to accept wage cuts as part of an employee buyout of the Sunbeam Corp.-owned plant. Michael Cavanaugh, assistant manager of the regional board of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, said BTC workers heard the same presentation Sunday that was given to banks and other potential investors in the plant and agreed to support the planned buyout. [more...]

Mill Deal Keeps Workers Hoping
BIDDEFORD, ME., - A union-led alliance to buy Biddeford Textile co. has turned fear into guarded hope here. The effort involves a Portland businessman, Michael Liberty, and Wal-Mart's heiress turned investment banker, Alice Walton -- two of the people who helped save the C.F. Hathaway shirt factory in Waterville. A deal could be reached in Beddeford in the next few weeks. [more...]