Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Acquires Van Houtte for $915M

On December 17, 2010, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. acquired Van Houtte from Littlejohn & Co., LLC, a private equity firm headquartered in Greenwich, CT, the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec and management for an aggregate cash purchase price of approximately $915 million.

Headquartered in Montréal, Van Houtte is a leading gourmet coffee brand in Canada in the home and office channels. Van Houtte roasts and markets gourmet coffee for home and office consumption and distributes it through its direct-to-store delivery and coffee services networks in Canada and the United States.

Littlejohn was represented in Canada by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team that included Peter Castiel, Howard Rosenoff, Warren Silversmith, Resham Ramchandani, Isabelle Lamy, Adam Cieply and Annie Lespérance (corporate); Franco Gadoury, Frank Mathieu and Éric Lévesque (tax); Jeffrey Brown and Ashley Weber (competition); Patrick Essiminy (employment); Justine Whitehead (intellectual property); Michel Legendre (benefits); and Richard Rusk (environmental); and in the United States by Morrison Cohen LLP with a team that included Salomon Sassoon and Jared Hershberg (corporate); Isaac Grossman and Michael Weinstein (tax) and Alan Levine (benefits); and by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP with a team that included Sean Griffiths (corporate); Sean Royall and Christopher Wood (competition) and David Kennedy (intellectual property). The Fonds de solidarité FTQ was represented by its Senior Legal Advisor, Natacha Bernier.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was represented in the United States by Ropes & Gray LLP with a team that included Jane Goldstein, Taylor Hart, Sarah Schaffer Raux and Brett Celedonia (corporate); Jonathan Zorn and Abigail Baird (benefits); Christopher Powell (employment); Colburn Cherney (environmental); Thomas Draper, Alyson Stewart and Melissa Moran (finance); Edward Black and Shreevani Suvarna (intellectual property); Mit Spears and Jared Nagley (regulatory) and Eric Elfman, Aaron Harsh and Pamela Glazier (tax); and in Canada by Goodmans LLP with a team that included Stephen Halperin, Kari MacKay, Caroline Cook and Mark Haber (corporate); Jon Northup and Mark Biderman (tax); Amalia Trister (intellectual property) and Richard Annan (competition); and by Torys LLP with a team that included Jay Holsten, Omar Wakil and Sue-Anne Fox (regulatory). For Québec matters, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was represented by Lavery, de Billy L.L.P. with a team that included Carl Ravinsky, Melanie Chartrand and Jean Tessier (corporate) and France Legault (employment).