Headquartered in Houston, TX and founded in 1995, Little Woodrow’s is a neighborhood bar/restaurant that provides a unique casual atmosphere featuring both indoor seating and outdoor patios. Founded in 1998, Fast Eddie’s Billiards is Texas’ largest chain of contemporary billiard parlors, also providing a friendly sports bar and menu offering.

The owners of each company had been friends for years and worked together on projects to license their concepts amongst each other to open new locations as well as convert and rebrand select existing locations. After several years, they decided to merge the two companies forming Little Woodrow’s Holding Co., LLC, which created a total of 33 locations, combined. In conjunction with the merger, the Company engaged Westlake Securities as its investment banker to help explore all options for capital raising, ranging from a majority sale to debt financing.

We had a longstanding relationship with Westlake and requested an opportunity to meet the owners. We structured a one-stop financing solution that included a senior revolving credit facility, a senior term loan, an additional senior credit line for capital expenditures, subordinated notes, and preferred equity. Westlake was attracted to our one-stop because it provided a combination of growth capital and a dividend distribution, while allowing the entrepreneurs to retain majority control of the businesses they had worked to build over decades.

The owners chose to partner with us based on our long-term, relationship-based approach and prior experience successfully partnering with management teams in similar structures, within the same industry. Our ability to provide the entire capital structure helped simplify what could have otherwise been a complicated business merger and financing opportunity.