Leonard Green and CVC Capital acquired BJ’s Wholesale Club in 2011, took it private and have paid investors dividends several times since. As a practical matter, unloading BJ’s one way or another makes sense for them — most often private equity investment is made with the goal of getting the money back out, with profits, within five years or so. For BJ’s then, the time is more than ripe.
But a sale has proven difficult. Last year Amazon was said to be interested in the business, which would have garnered the e-commerce giant a well placed national brick-and-mortar footprint, but Whole Foods was the target of that instead.
