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Case WL Ross & Plascar
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Case of 16 pages for the course International Company Law at UVT (Case Study in Class)
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9-209-091REV: NOVEMBER 25, 2009
C. FRITZ FOLEY
LINNEA N. MEYER
WL Ross and Plascar
In April 2006, Wilbur L. Ross, chairman and CEO of the private equity firm WL Ross & Co., LLC,
was considering placing a bid for the assets of Plascar Industria e Comercio Ltda. (Plascar), the
Brazilian subsidiary of the global auto components company Collins & Aikman Corp. (C&A Corp.).
WL Ross & Co., LLC was already both a creditor of and an investor in C&A Corp., which had entered
into insolvency proceedings many months earlier in Europe and North America. Specifically, the
firm had supplied Collins & Aikman Europe (C&A Europe) with the equivalent of debtor-in-
possession financing in September 2005 and, after extensive due diligence, had purchased its interior
plastics business in March 2006. Now, as C&A Europe continued to liquidate its holdings in Europe
and South America, Ross was contemplating acquiring further assets, Plascar in particular.
Plascar had only recently caught the attention of Ross and Stephen Toy, the “point man on autos”
at WL Ross & Co., LLC, as the Brazilian company had played a relatively minimal role in C&A
Europe’s operations. They took note of it when conducting due diligence on the subsidiaries listed
on C&A Europe’s lengthy asset ledger; a significant amount of intercompany debt existed between
this small South American subsidiary and the European assets Ross was set to acquire.
Although IAC Group was relatively new, founded by Ross in October 2005 in conjunction with
Lear Corp., a global automotive components supplier, it was already growing rapidly. IAC Group
boasted a strong potential presence in Europe; its management was in the process of acquiring Lear
Corp.’s European interior components business and C&A Europe’s interior plastics business, and was
actively considering a number of other acquisitions. Buying C&A Europe’s Brazilian subsidiary,
Plascar, would certainly contribute to the global nature of IAC Group. But Ross questioned the
underlying, long-term value of Plascar’s assets. Would their advantages outweigh the risks posed by
the firm’s balance sheet? Would Ross’s restructuring strategy actually unlock Plascar’s long-term
value?
WL Ross: Background
Wilbur Ross had spent much of his career working on restructurings. After earning a MBA with
distinction from Harvard Business School in 1961, Ross worked in investment banking at Wood,
Struthers & Winthrop Management Corp. He left that firm to work at Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan
Inc., and then, in 1974, left to begin what would become a twenty-four-year career as a restructuring
specialist at Rothschild Inc., a global investment bank. Ross soon worked his way to Executive
Managing Director in Rothschild Inc.’s American subsidiary and, in 1997, founded its private equity
fund. Ross quickly realized that he “preferred the investing side of the business to the advising
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Professor C. Fritz Foley and Research Associate Linnea N. Meyer prepared this case. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class
discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
Copyright © 2009 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685,
write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu/educators. This publication may not be digitized,
photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School.
Purchased by Danny Redert (dannyredert@hotmail.com) on October 13, 2012
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