Thomas H Lee Co

The offer, valued at about $574 million, is from a group headed by the Boston investment firm Thomas H. Lee Co. in conjunction with Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. and includes "certain members of SCOA's management" participating as investors, the Columbus, Ohio-based retailer reported. In the proposed acquisition, SCOA stockholders would receive $35 per share in cash for 85.7% of their shares and $35 per share in liquidation value of a new class of preferred stock for 14.3% of the shares.

TRW Information Services & Systems operation completed its $1-billion spin-off Thursday from automotive and aerospace giant TRW Inc. David van Skilling, general manager when the business was a TRW unit, is now chairman and chief executive of Experian, the new company. Skilling and other managers are investors in the buyout led by Boston investment funds Bain Capital Inc. and Thomas H. Lee Co.

Credit data giant Experian Corp. said it may go public soon with a $250-million stock offering--equal to about 23% of the $1.1-billion price placed on the company when it broke away last month from its former parent, TRW Inc. In a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Experian said it would use proceeds from the offering to repay a $248.7-million loan from its main financial backers, Boston investment firms Bain Capital Inc. and Thomas H. Lee Co.

Not bad for a few months' work. The investment group led by Boston financiers W. Mitt Romney and Thomas H. Lee that bought TRW's information services unit less than two months ago and sold it Thursday made a profit of nearly $12 million a day on the deal. Romney's Bain Capital Inc. and Lee's Thomas H. Lee Co. cleared a profit of $200 million each on the sale, after paying off their investment partners and bank loans related to the purchase. The investment group paid $1.

Privately held Playtex Holdings Inc. said Wednesday that it has agreed to a $1.3-billion management-led buyout and plans afterward to spin off its apparel division. Playtex Holdings will be acquired by an investor group led by Chairman Joel Smilow and Thomas H. Lee Co., a private Boston-based investment firm, the company said in a statement. The buyout offer consists of $9.60 in cash and preferred stock worth $1 for each of the company's 50 million outstanding shares, a $530 million transaction.

Krause's Furniture Inc. said Wednesday that it has received $19 million from a group headed by an Internet investment fund, which becomes the Brea company's largest shareholder. The investors are headed by TH Lee.Putnam Internet Partners LP, which has about a 25% stake in the company. TH Lee, which already has one director on Krause's board, will add another member as the company increases the board to nine directors to accommodate the change.

TRW Inc. is deep into negotiations to sell its Orange-based information systems and services subsidiary to a Boston investors group for an estimated $1 billion, sources said Wednesday. A major Orange County employer, the TRW information unit is best known for its consumer credit reports. It also specializes in preparing business credit reports and real estate market data.

Patriot American Hospitality Inc., one of the nation's largest hotel companies, said Tuesday that it will enter into exclusive negotiations with a group led by financier Leon Black for a $1-billion investment, rejecting a rival proposal from Hilton Hotels Corp. Beverly Hills-based Hilton had proposed to purchase about $1 billion of the company's hotels--which include Summerfield Suites and Wyndham hotels--and make a $350-million equity investment, people familiar with the talks have said.

A group led by former junk bond king Michael Milken and other would-be buyers will make final bids for a big piece of the Simon & Schuster publishing business, a source familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday. The sale of Viacom Inc.'s professional, educational and reference publishing divisions "is proceeding," a Viacom spokeswoman said, declining to comment further. In the latest development, the Milken-led consortium succeeded in getting cable TV giant Tele-Communications Inc.

John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. said Friday that it has agreed to sell its Sutro & Co. and Tucker Anthony Inc. stock-brokerage units to a group led by the firms' managers for $180 million. Sutro, headquartered in San Francisco, and Boston-based Tucker Anthony are respected but small, regional competitors in the securities industry, and Hancock said it's shedding the firms to focus on its core insurance lines.