Green Mountain, which had 2010 sales of about $1.4 billion, had acquired Montreal's Van Houtte from its private-equity owners in a $905 million deal as of Dec. 17. Van Houtte sells Keurig and K-Cup coffee-brewing equipment and gourmet coffee.
At the time of the December deal, the publicly traded Green Mountain said it intended to sell the U.S. coffee-service business known as Filterfresh, which Van Houtte had bought in 1997, to reduce overlap.
Aramark is a privately held food-service giant that reported sales of $12.57 billion for its fiscal year ended Oct. 1.
On a strong day for U.S. stocks, Green Mountain shares closed at $98.71, up 80 cents or 0.8 percent.
Growth Giants
One thing that struck me about the 2011 Inc. 5000 list of fast-growing private companies was how many really big local companies made appearances, including several formerly public companies that were bought out by private-equity firms.
Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. (No. 4,837) had $3.7 billion in sales in 2010. The South Jersey discount retailer's three-year sales growth rate was just 8 percent, but that was good enough in these slow-growth times.
Wayne's SunGard Data Systems Inc. (No. 4,882) had $5 billion in sales in 2010 and had a growth rate of 6 percent. The financial software company recently announced it would divest its higher-education software business.
Horsham-based NCO Group Inc. (No. 4,246) had sales of $1.6 billion in 2010 and a 25 percent growth rate. NCO, which changed CEOs in March, is in the debt-collection industry, which, unfortunately, has been a growth business for years.
Contact columnist Mike Armstrong at 215-854-2980 or marmstrong@phillynews.com, or @PhillyInc on Twitter. Read his blog, "PhillyInc," at www.phillyinc.biz.
