Boehly’s Eldridge Finds Opportunities in Pandemic-Hit Companies

Todd Boehly has been hunting for bargains during Covid-19, investing in businesses that have been hit hard by the pandemic and even picking up the U.S. operations of Le Pain Quotidien out of bankruptcy.

“We have been very active creating value where we think there are value gaps,” Boehly, the chief executive of Eldridge Industries said during an interview on Bloomberg Television. “Covid has given us a lot of opportunities.”

WATCH: Eldridge Industries CEO Todd Boehly discusses finding investments using “value gaps” amid the coronavirus pandemic, the potential for investment opportunities in professional sports franchises in the coming years and new found liquidity in the real estate market of the New York tri-state area.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Eldridge, the investment firm he co-founded after leaving Guggenheim Partners, has been focusing on distressed names that trade at deep discounts, as well as technology companies such as PayActiv and Truebill that are already in its portfolio. CBAM Partners, part of the Eldridge empire, has been looking to raise a new $500 million fund to buy bonds and syndicated loans in both primary and secondary markets, among other beaten-up debt, Bloomberg reported last month.

Watch here: How Eldridge Industries Found Coronavirus Investment Opportunities (Video)

Greenwich, Connecticut-based Eldridge has invested in companies whose entire businesses have been upended by social distancing, such as car-racing operator Formula One and concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc. It also bought the U.S. arm of Belgian bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien, which filed for bankruptcy last month.

“We expect to come out of bankruptcy opening somewhere between 40 and 50 stores and are having productive conversations with the landlords,” Boehly said.

Other investments have not played out as well. NPC International Inc., the largest franchisee of Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants in the U.S. has been considering a bankruptcy filing after failing to turn around its operations, Bloomberg first reported in February. Eldridge wrote off its equity stake in NPC in 2019.

“Ultimately we decided that NPC wasn’t going to be one that we protected or defended,” Boehly said of the company. A Chapter 11 filing may come as soon as Tuesday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

And then there’s Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, where creditors including CBAM are set to turn down a proposal led by TPG that would leave them with a 45% stake in the company in exchange for wiping out most of its debt, according to separate people familiar with the situation.

Boehly said there is a “lot going on” with Cirque at the moment and declined to comment further.

“I don’t think this pandemic will change whether or not people like to gather,” Boehly said. “And, ultimately, if they have strong intellectual property, they have some hits, they have decent businesses, those are generally the types of themes that we’re very interested in.”

(Updates with tech investments in third paragraph, timing of potential bankruptcy filing in seventh paragraph.)

--With assistance from Erik Schatzker.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Davide Scigliuzzo in New York at dscigliuzzo2@bloomberg.net;
Paula Sambo in Toronto at psambo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Natalie Harrison at nharrison73@bloomberg.net

Molly Smith, Dan Wilchins

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