Bloomberg reported Hostess Brands won bankruptcy court approval to hold auctions for brands including Wonder Bread, Twinkies and Drake’s.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, today approved Flowers Foods Inc. (FLO), McKee Foods Corp., United States Bakery Inc., Apollo Global Management LLC (APO) and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co. as so-called stalking-horse, or lead, bidders for most of Hostess’s cake and bread brands, setting the thresholds other suitors will have to exceed. A sale hearing, to approve the highest and best bids, is set for March 19.

Apollo and Metropoulos offered as much as $410 million for the Hostess snack-cake business, which includes Dolly Madison brands, five bakeries and equipment. Leon Black’s Apollo, based in New York, managed $109.7 billion in assets as of Sept. 30. Metropoulos, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, is the private equity firm that owns Pabst Brewing Co.

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