Ancor Capital Partners and Merit Capital Partners recently acquired Tom Cat Bakery, New York City, one of the nation's largest specialty wholesale bread bakeries. As part of the agreement, Matthew Reich, Tom Cat's C.O.O., will become president, and James Rath will remain vice president. Both have more than 10 years of experience at the company, have run day-to-day operations for the past five years and are now shareholders in the company. Noel Labat-Comess, founder and president of the bakery, will act as consultant temporarily, while developing plans to launch his own, unrelated food business.

Tom Cat Bakery was founded in 1987 in a 1,300-sq.-ft. garage in Long Island City, N.Y. At that time, the company had three employees and produced 25 products. Today, it employs 275 people, operates out of a 45,000-sq.-ft. facility, makes 350 different products and has 900 clients in the New York metropolitan area and throughout the Northeast.

“I am incredibly proud of what the Tom Cat team has accomplished over the last 20 years,” Labat-Comess said. “As our customers and the public can attest, we have achieved our extraordinary growth while never compromising the quality of our breads or service…We are partnering with Ancor and Merit because they have the financial resources needed to take Tom Cat to the next level of growth, and they highly value our existing management team. Operationally, little will change: quality of products and service will remain Tom Cat's priority. The only difference: Ancor and Merit's investment will help make Tom Cat's products and services available to even more customers.”