South Beauty

South Beauty is a Chinese restaurant company founded by Zhang Lan in 2000 , which became the target of a high-profile leveraged buyout by CVC Capital Partners in 2014. CVC acquired 82.7% of the company for $280 million using roughly 5× leverage—only $60 million of its own capital, with $142 million in bank borrowing and the rest from investor commitments . The deal quickly soured: within a year, CVC barred Zhang from entering South Beauty's headquarters and removed her as chairman, while her remaining 13.8% stake had been silently pledged to banks through a shell-company structure without her knowledge . CVC later alleged "serious financial fraud" by Zhang that had inflated the acquisition price, winning a 2019 arbitration award of $142 million plus interest against her . The decade-long dispute, spanning cross-border M&A traps, trust-fund seizures, and leveraged-finance techniques, became a touchstone for debates about foreign capital's fraught record acquiring Chinese consumer brands .