Park Seed Co. has been purchased through auction by private equity firm Blackstreet Capital of Chevy Chase, Md., for $13 million.
The auction took place Monday in Columbia, S.C. bankruptcy court, where a judge agreed to Blackstreet’s bid. The company started off with a bid of around $7 million, but two more bidders increased the offerings. Blackstreet promised to keep the operations in Greenwood and to keep the roughly 200 full-time employees on, according to Associated Press reports.
The winning bidder is required to keep the employees on and keep operations in Greenwood for three years or pay a $1.5 million penalty.
Several companies under the George W. Park Co. entity were consolidated last month by the bankruptcy court at the request of the trustee in charge of the companies. The trustee requested the consolidation after finding the financials of all the companies so entangled he could not establish which creditors belonged to each company.