True Temper Sports, Inc., the golf shafts and performance sports equipment maker, completed its financial restructuring plan, originally announced on September 30th. The plan, which was approved by the company's lenders in September, was formally confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on November 30th, and brings to a close the company's debt restructuring under the court's oversight.
The resulting new capital structure represents a substantial improvement in True Temper's balance sheet, as a group of investors led by Newport Global Advisors and Providence Equity Partners have joined together to acquire a majority equity interest in the Company. The significant new capital investment and resulting loan repayments, combined with the overall debt restructuring, resulted in eliminating over 80% of the company's indebtedness. In addition to the debt reduction, True Temper has also obtained a new revolving credit facility led by GE Capital.
Commenting on the new capital structure, Scott Hennessy, President and CEO noted, “This is an extremely positive outcome for our Company, and the completion of our financial restructuring certainly marks the beginning of a new day for True Temper Sports. We are very well positioned for the future, with a supportive new ownership group dedicated to the long-term success of the Company, and a capital structure that will now enable us to accelerate our global growth initiatives. We are also pleased that our plan was fully implemented with no impact to our employees, customers, or suppliers; and that our underlying operations remained unaffected by this balance sheet restructuring.”
Looking to the future, Hennessy noted, “With this financial restructuring now behind us, we can once again put our full focus on the design and manufacture of the world's best golf shafts and performance sports equipment. It has certainly been a challenging year for the entire industry, but we are now seeing clear signs of recovery in our business. The current level of demand is requiring us to increase our production output and recall a number of our furloughed manufacturing employees, as we expect this trend to continue. We are budgeting for a double digit rebound in sales revenue over the next few months, and substantial improvement throughout 2010. The overall growth for next year should be driven by favorable economic and industry factors, in addition to our own new product line-up, which is arguably the most robust in our Company's history. We believe True Temper is more than ready to not only maintain but to grow our leadership position for years to come.”
