Private Equity News & Analysis

Hicks Muse offers dividend on Swift

Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst have told investors that a $150m dividend recap is on the way later this week, as well as a second $8m dividend in the next few months.

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Dallas-based Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst has told investors that they will receive a substantial dividend from Greeley, Colorado-based meat processor Swift, according to a source.

The fund will distribute around $150 million (€113 million) later this week. Around $136 million of the capital will come from the Swift dividend, with the additional $14 million coming from the release of the successfully exited Pinnacle Foods sale escrow.

An additional $8 million will follow in a second dividend.

The dividends repay 80 percent of the Swift investment, while retaining the Hicks Muse ownership stake. Fund V will also have distributed $879 million, about 75 percent of the capital called.

Hicks Muse also said that the distribution includes more than $25 million of carried interest, pledged by the firm’s partners to backstop a 20 percent IRR on a pool of Internet investments in November 2000.

Swift was created in 2002 when Hicks Muse and Booth Creek Management acquired a majority stake in the beef and pork processing division of ConAgra Foods. The firm solidified control in 2004 when they bought out the balance of ConAgra’s interest in the business.

Fund V closed in 2002 on $1.6 billion.