W. Atlee Burpee & Company

Client Profile
W. Atlee Burpee & Company (‘Burpee’ or the ‘Company’), one of the country’s strongest and most trusted names in home gardening, provides retail packet seeds through both direct marketing catalogues and retail outlets throughout the United States.
Situation
Selling to the nation’s largest retailers with K-Mart as one of its largest customers, proved to be a challenging situation. Additional challenges included large losses on its own retail centers, which were closed, and recent acquisitions to expand the Burpee name that were costly and lowered the Company’s overall performance.
Solution
SSG was retained by Burpee to explore their strategic options. SSG explored a range of alternatives, and ultimately initiated, structured, negotiated and closed on a creative senior debt private placement which provided Burpee with working capital for its core business and capital to fund its expansion, while at the same time, allowing Burpee to remain independent.