opengate capital lawsuit

[5] At Platinum Equity, he expanded the firm's international presence in Europe. The owner, private equity firm OpenGate Capital in Century City, had turned over management of the firm in December to a restructuring and liquidation company, Realization Services Inc. in Bedford . It also said employees sought help from Thermo Fisher to address the cartel activity, but that security upgrade proposals were not implemented. They just care about lining their pockets with money. With a strategic international presence and a focus on corporate carve-outs and complex . It came as a complete shock to the management at the dairy and the union that they were about to close, said Eileen Appelbaum, a senior economist at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, whose book Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street devotes a chapter to the Wisconsin dairy. Stanziale alleged that the dairy was insolvent in December 2011, more than a year before the hurried shutdown. [23] OpenGate rebranded the business EverZinc; within Umicore it had generated $425 million in revenue in 2015.[24]. Other emerging managers in . Hufcor, a market-leading producer of accordion-style doors and mobile room partitions, is one of many companies reeling from the private equity model in which firms acquire businesses and squeeze them for cash, routinely causing bankruptcies. The spokesman, who did not want to be identified because of pending litigation, said the company warned workers about the possibility of a plant closure when it learned of the eviction threat. Nikou was not named as a defendant in the suit. The goal of this section is to provide consumers with a comprehensive resource on class action and mass tort lawsuits. Only months after signing the new union contract, employees were notified that the mill would close, said Richard Harrelle, president of the Steelworkers Local 1840, which represented around 100 of the approximately 145 people who worked at the company. Then, their final checks bounced. LOS ANGELES, August 23, 2022 -- ( BUSINESS WIRE )-- OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced today it . Reporting by Pallavi Ail in Bangalore, Karl Plume in Chicago; editing by Gunna Dickson. OpenGate Capital Group LLC et al v. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, Court Case No. Confronted with this looming loss, Hufcor employees, Janesville residents and CWA union organizers have rallied against OpenGates greedy and exploitative practices. This spring, Hamilton Scientific, a De Pere, Wis., lab equipment maker owned by OpenGate, abruptly shut down, laying off 80 people there and 190 at plants in Texas and Arkansas without notice, according to a lawsuit filed by former employees. An uncommon approach to investing in and growing complex businesses. Post-closing, Open Gate employee Andrew Nikou was appointed as the sole member of Golden Guernsey. Wrong. The owner, private equity firm OpenGate Capital in Century City, had turned over management of the firm in December to a restructuring and liquidation company, Realization Services Inc. in Bedford Hills, N.Y. And in the two months before the shutdown, the lender, a unit of Capital One Financial Corp., had placed one and sometimes two representatives at PennySavers Brea headquarters to monitor the operation and the companys financial condition, under terms of the line of credit it was using to pay employees, among other expenses. At their side are elected officials who know that the whole country needs tough measures to reform private equity. in Janesville, Wisconsin awoke to a nightmare. Lauren moved back to the states in 2011 and now lives in Long Beach. The 10-year-old private equity firm has acquired some 20 companies since its founding, and famously bought TV Guide for $1 in 2008. It was one of the most shocking things that ever happened to me in my business life, Weinberg testified. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, alleged that Thermo Fisher had acted in bad faith by withholding documents and directing employees to conceal the drug gangs presence at the facility. during its first decade in business, has run exactly that playbook in Janesville since acquiring Hufcor in 2017. OpenGate uncovered that the facility was being used by senior local leaders of the Mexican Gulf Cartel, according to a federal complaint filed on June 12 . 1 at 17.) Similarly, employees at Golden Guernsey learned their company was closing when they showed up to work only to find the doors locked. Throughout the first year they started to liquidate assets selling property and equipment. Nikou was born in 1977 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. On Friday May 21,2015 they fired all employees. Private equity, an ownership structure that puts distant financiers in charge of how a business is run, has been shown to result in worse health outcomes for patients, at greater cost. of the Connecticut boxboard company Fusion Paperboard, and nearly. Coupon mailing company PennySaver USA was in default on its main operating loan for five months before it abruptly shut down on the eve of the Memorial Day weekend, something few of its roughly 680 employees knew before they were put out of work. This May Day, let's show solidarity https://t.co/4v7zeBzAiz, . One of those businesses, like PennySaver, filed for bankruptcy. Opengate did not specify what damages it was seeking. E-FILING TRANSACTION 2392305 RECEIVED ON 07/15/2015 . (D.I. After the Fusion facility closed in September 2014, the state launched several programs to retrain workers, Osten said. Dean Starkman previously covered Wall Street for the Los Angeles Times; he left in 2016. OpenGate Capital General Information. 1:13-cv-01475 in the Delaware District Court. Employees who started work later arrived to find the facility locked. In 2005, Nikou founded OpenGate Capital with $30,000 from his own savings. [9], In 2019, OpenGate purchased the lock company Sargent and Greenleaf from Stanley Black & Decker. [9] In 2006, OpenGate purchased OMMIC, a former division of Philips. Power Partners Inc., the first investment completed in OpenGate's first fund, was realized in November 2019 through the sale to Pioneer Transformers, a portfolio company of Mill Point Partners. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. With its global presence and deep focus on target sectors and investment types, OpenGate is known to bring innovation and transformational value to complex transactions. OpenGate Capital, the private equity firm that owns their employer, Hufcor, announced it was moving their plant out of Janesville taking those workers jobs and livelihoods with it. OpenGate is moving the plant to Mexico anyway. OpenGate Capital partners with companies to . OpenGate Capital, LLC, et al., Central District of California, Case No. If we wanted to liquidate the company it would be done by now. This spring, 166 workers in Janesville, Wisconsin awoke to a nightmare. A Delaware federal judge on Tuesday rejected Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.'s bid to toss a suit alleging it fraudulently concealed that a Mexico manufacturing facility it sold to private equity . A court-appointed trustee also sued OpenGate for siphoning money from Pennysaver through a variety of shady tactics. But OpenGate never got a dime after it lent the cash as the alleged fraud was uncovered. OpenGate manages a diverse, global portfolio across key verticals within Industrials and Technology sectors. Federal Civil Lawsuit California Central District Court, Case No. Official press release ScioTeq - EN. Jul. Later that year, Nikou led OpenGate Capital's bid for McGraw-Hill Companies BusinessWeek magazine, then withdrew from the bidding. We have just sent you an email so you can verify your account. The firm focuses on the acquisition of lower-to-mid-market businesses in the industrials, business services, and technology sectors. [17][18][19], In July 2016, OpenGate closed its first institutional fund, OpenGate Capital Partners I, at $305 million, exceeding its target of $300 million and raising about twice what the average new private equity fund does, according to Preqin. Our tax dollars should make life better not go to waste on bloated military contracts and Pentagon boondoggles. We work with every customer to find a workable solution, but unfortunately we werent able to reach an agreement in this situation. He declined to comment further. [1] The firm is focused on the acquisition of lower to middle market businesses that are often privately owned, or non-core divisions of larger companies located around the world. The lawsuits allege that a company or individual violated securities laws and are brought on behalf of the class. OpenGate Capital is a private equity firm with offices in Los Angeles and Paris that strives to acquire and optimize lower middle market businesses throughout North America and Europe. In 2010, Dean Foods Company, its then owner, sold Golden Guernsey to a private equity company, Open Gate Capital, LLC ("Open Gate"), as part of the settlement of an antitrust lawsuit brought by the United States Department of Justice. OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, has acquired Umicore Zinc Chemicals, a global leader in the production of specialty zinc chemicals, from parent company Umicore. [8] In 2004, he left Platinum Equity and moved back to Los Angeles to start his own global investment firm. [28][29], Past closures also included PennySaver USA and Hamilton Scientific. Former employees of other OpenGate Capital portfolio companies have similar stories of hardship, and some warn that the ex-PennySaver employees are up against serious challenges. This case was filed in Orange County Superior Courts, Civil Complex Center located in Orange, California. In 2011, the firm acquired NorPaper Avot Valle, a specialty paper manufacturer based in France. We need a new push to pass this law. Hufcor is shipping its Janesville plant to Monterrey, Mexico, making it the biggest business closure in Janesville since the town lost 2,500 jobs when a GM plant closed during the Great Recession. The acquisition financing was arranged via a unitranche by Deutsche Bank as . In too many cases with private equity, big firms acquire businesses and squeeze them for cash, routinely causing bankruptcies. The list is updated frequently, so check . OpenGate Capital. The legislation will end "the failed experiment of gutting Michigan workers' rights," said one lawmaker. At OpenGate, we strive for a culture that promotes open communication and empowerment of fellow team members.. Here's What He's Doing to Help Others", "Meet The Private Equity CEO Who's In Talks For His Own Reality Show", "TV Guide, Once Master of the Airwaves, Tries to Survive in a Competitive Category", "OpenGate Capital to buy lock maker from Stanley Black & Decker", "UPDATE 2-OpenGate, Zuckerman drop BusinessWeek bid -sources", https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2AnwxqSzXBI, "OpenGate Closes $585 Million Fund, Acquires CoreMedia", "OpenGate Capital Portfolio Company Duraco Specialty Tapes Acquires Infinity Tapes", "Private equity firm scoops up Getronics' Latin American portfolio from KPN", http://lavca.org/2010/03/18/opengate-capital-acquires-philips-business-communications-in-brazil/, http://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2011/06/14/opengate-buys-cascades-recycled-box.html, "Andrew Nikou, OpenGate founder, talks challenges of raising a first-time fund", "Umicore completes sale of zinc units to U.S. private equity firm", "OpenGate seals fifth platform deal, moves through debut fund - PE Hub", "OpenGate Capital Acquires Belgian Zinc Supplier Umicore | Los Angeles Business Journal", "OpenGate Capital's Second Institutional Fund Closes $585M", "State DWD takes steps to help Golden Guernsey workers; Workers may be eligible for 60 days' pay", "Golden Guernsey Dairy abrupt closing leaves workers, state seeking answers", "OpenGate Capital, which owns PennySaver, has closed other companies, too", "OpenGate gets sued for alleged WARN Act violations", "Photo Release -- Esperanza Azteca Youth Orchestra to Expand to Los Angeles", "Public-Private Partnership Launches Orchestra Program for Underprivileged Los Angeles Youth", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Nikou&oldid=1147933710, William Howard Taft Charter High School alumni, Articles with dead external links from October 2016, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles using Template Infobox person Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 3 April 2023, at 03:40. Banks dont do this. Every major bank in the U.S. covers the payrolls.. OpenGate Capital is a private equity firm that strives to acquire and optimize lower-to-middle market businesses throughout North America and Europe. Kasoff said that his sole focus after his company was brought in was on fixing PennySaver and that a shutdown was never contemplated until Capital One shut off credit without explanation. OpenGate Capital regularly acquires under-performing businesses that by their very nature are sometimes operationally distressed, said Terry Fahn, a senior executive at the crisis management firm Sitrick and Company that represents OpenGate. It had about 100 workers, some of whom arrived at the plant one January morning to find the gates locked, according to state documents. A native of California, Lauren attended Cal State Long Beach where she majored in journalism and political science. The firm faced six different lawsuits after abruptly laying off Pennysaver employees in the middle of a work day and failing to give workers their final . They have a right to do what they did as far as liquidate the company, but they dont have a right to do it in the manner they did.. Instead, he sits on numerous boards and hes even been in talks about a reality TV show built around his private equity business. Opengate said gang members brandished weapons to intimidate employees at the facility and parked their cars and tractor-trailers filled with unknown cargo there. Even as hundreds of American workers have suffered from OpenGates schemes, Andrew Nikou, the OpenGate founder and CEO, has not faced any meaningful financial or social consequences for repeated business failures at the hands of his firm. For ScioTeq, 2020 was again a record . Last year, an OpenGate portfolio company called Fusion Paperboard in Sprague, Conn., shut down, eliminating 145 jobs and defaulting on the $1.8-million balance of a state-subsidized loan, according to the state Department of Economic and Community Development. 3 min read. It agreed to provide $3.1 million in financing in November 2013 for five days. it's been delivered there. In the weeks leading up to the coupon magazines mass layoffs, managers were on a tear, asking advertisers to pay up front and offering sales representatives bonuses for bringing in the most money, Buckley said. Hufcor, a market-leading producer of accordion-style doors and mobile room partitions, was profitable when OpenGate bought it. That would be a hard argument to make, he said. We work with every customer to find a workable solution, but unfortunately we werent able to reach an agreement in this situation.. OpenGate Capital, a Los Angeles firm that amassed $5 billion in revenue during its first decade in business, has run exactly that playbook in Janesville since acquiring Hufcor in 2017. . You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Your activity looks suspicious to us. The private equity firm claimed that the Reynosa, Mexico-based manufacturing facility, which it acquired as part of a larger deal from Thermo Fisher, had been regularly infiltrated by gangs from the Gulf Cartel since at least 2011, according to a copy of the complaint seen by Reuters.

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