Burkle's Twinkie fixation

Can't Ron Burkle cut a deal that's easy? The latest adventure involving our peripatetic L.A. billionaire involves Interstate Bakeries, the company that makes Hostess Twinkies and recently had to shut down the local bakeries that make Wonder Bread. Interstate, you see, has been under Chapter 11 bankruptcy for three years, unable to reorganize and pay off creditors that are owed $1 billion. The company came up with a plan last month that favors Interstate's bank lenders over unsecured bondholders and other creditors. Unions weren’t thrilled. Enter Burkle, who through his Yucaipa investment firm has joined up with the Teamsters to come up with a better deal. Here's how it's explained by Bloomberg:

Yucaipa is trying to repeat the success it had with bankrupt car-hauler Allied Holdings Inc. where a deal with the Teamsters gave it control of the company. At Allied, Los Angeles-based Yucaipa negotiated concessions half the size managers said were necessary for the company to exit bankruptcy. As part of the deal Chairman Robert J. Rutland, grandson of the trucker's founder, was ousted, shareholders got nothing and creditors collected at least 50 cents on the dollar. Yucaipa and the Teamsters ``obviously have some sort of symbiotic relationship,'' said Peter Wolfson, a lawyer for Allied shareholders who currently represents a committee of Interstate equity owners. ``I just don't think that it makes sense for Yucaipa to be meddling with the ongoing labor negotiations.''

It sounds like another chance for him to be a white knight. But Burkle’s record on these sorts of deals isn't exactly inspiring. He worked with newspaper employee groups on possible bids for Dow Jones and McClatchy, but nothing ever came of them.