Elior SCA to buy TrustHouse Services

March 18—Gryphon Investors, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell TrustHouse Services Group to Elior SCA, a provider of contract and concessions catering headquartered in Paris, France.

Elior is partnering with its two main shareholders and TrustHouse's management for the acquisition. TrustHouse was founded by former Compass Group CEO Michael J. Bailey, and is focuses on healthcare, education and corrections foodservice. The transaction is expected to close early in the second quarter. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

In its partnership with Bailey, Gryphon formed TrustHouse in March of 2008. During Gryphon's ownership, the company experienced organic growth and integrated three acquisitions, resulting in operations expanding from 22 to 45 states.

"Gryphon has been a valuable partner and I appreciate their support of the original vision, including our organic growth plans and acquisition strategy,” Bailey, CEO of TrustHouse, said in a press release Despite the challenging economic conditions early on, we were successful in executing our investment thesis of building a leading CFS platform. We are enthusiastic about partnering with Elior and believe we are well positioned for our next phase of growth."