For many, ARAMARK is a leader in professional services, providing award-winning food services, facilities management, and uniform and career apparel to health care institutions, universities, school districts, stadiums, arenas, and businesses around the world.
They are responsible for the cliche about hospital food, horribly overcooked vegetables served in schools that take years years for kids to ever try again, and overpriced stadium food that sees you missing half of the second quarter of the big game.
Today, Aramark filed to raise $100 million in an initial public offering. The usual suspects including, but not limited to, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM), Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), will lead the IPO according to a filing with the SEC today.
Aramark sees itself listed on the NYSE
The $100 million is only a number assessed in order to calculate fees, and may change before the Philadelphia-based Aramark sees itself listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 2007, Aramark and its over a half a billion meals served annually, was taken private for around $8 billion by then-Chairman Joseph Neubauer, according to Bloomberg.
That buyout was made possible through the involvement of the investment arms of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, though it was spearheaded by the private-equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Warburg Pincus LLC.
The Philadelphia-based company first went private in 1984 to thwart a hostile takeover. The company went public again in 2001 before the aforementioned return to its privately owned status.
The proposed IPO will be used to repay debt the company has accrued in recent years under CEO, Eric Foss, who took over in 2012.
Aramark earned $104 million in 2012 on revenue of $13.5 billion.
