Irving Place Capital

Investments

Since inception, Irving Place Capital and its predecessor, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking has made a number of investments in notable companies in the retail, restaurants, consumer products, healthcare, energy, financial and business services, and industrial sectors. Among the firm's most notable investments are the following (separated by the private equity fund from which the investment was made:

1997 - 2008

In 1997, John D. Howard was hired by Bear Stearns to launch a new private equity and merchant banking effort for the investment bank. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Howard had been senior vice president of Wesray Capital Corporation and later co-founded Vestar Capital Partners in 1988. In 1998, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking raised its first fund with $200 million of investor commitments. Bear Stearns had been one of the pioneers of private equity investing in the 1960s and 1970s, when Jerome Kohlberg and later protégés Henry Kravis and George Roberts completed a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments beginning in 1964-65 before leaving the bank to found Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 1976.

In 2001, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking completed fundraising for its second fund with $1.5 billion of investor commitments including a $500 million commitment from Bear Stearns. The fundraising effort had begun 18 months earlier in 1999.

Bear Stearns Merchant Banking launched Bear Growth Capital Partners in 2003 to target smaller companies that fell below the investment parameters it had set for its main fund. Bear Growth Capital Partners made its investments from capital provided by Bear Stearns rather than an independent fund or drawing from BSMB's fund. Also in 2003, BSMB provided capital to a joint venture with Rudolph Giuliani's private equity firm, Giuliani Capital Partners to make investments in the security sector.

In 2006, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking raised its third fund with $2.7 billion of investor commitments.

The collapse of Bear Stearns in 2008

In March 2008, Bear Stearns, BSMB's parent, faced what was repored to be a potential liquidity crisis. Through the intervention of the Federal Reserve and other US Government agencies, Bear Stearns agreed to a sale of the company to JPMorgan Chase on March 24, 2008, which was completed on May 30, 2008. Following the closing of this transaction, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking became a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase. In March 2008, when the meltdown of Bear Stearns began, the firm dropped the Bear Sterns Merchant Banking moniker and began calling itself BSMB to distance itself from the failed investment bank.

In June 2008, it was announced BSMB would spin out of J.P. Morgan. The bank already had its own private equity investment group One Equity Partners, which had been acquired in the 2004 acquisition of Bank One. JPMorgan Chase had already decided to keep the One Equity Partners group over JPMorgan Partners (today CCMP Capital), the legacy private equity investment group that had come from Chase Manhattan Bank in the 2000 merger. was once again designated the exclusive private equity arm for the combined firm. As a result, it was clear that Bear Stearns Merchant Banking was not going to remain within the bank.

The Bear Stearns Merchant Banking team was one of several private equity groups within Bear Stearns Asset Management that was acquired by JPMorgan Chase. Other groups included:

On November 1, 2008, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking completed a spin out from JPMorgan Chase to become Irving Place Capital.