First Brands Group: the company, its brands and the companies in its Chapter 11 case

analysisFirst Brands Group, LLC is a Delaware limited liability company with its principal place of business at 127 Public Square, Suite 5300, Cleveland, Ohio. Its GLEIF record names the Delaware Division of Corporations as registration authority with entity number 5304130 and shows the company as active. Its Chapter 11 petition gives the federal employer identification number 46-2872032 and the website firstbrandsgroup.com, lists Crowne Automotive Aftermarket, LLC and Trico Group, LLC as names used in the previous eight years, and classifies the business under NAICS code 5511, management of companies and enterprises. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisThe records disagree on when the company was formed. GLEIF records May 14, 2013 as its creation date and the debtors' first-day declaration says First Brands was formed in 2013 under the name Crowne Industrial Group, but the tender offer document filed with the SEC in January 2023 describes it as a Delaware limited liability company formed on June 10, 2020. The retained records do not explain the difference, and no Delaware certificate of formation or conversion is among them. A third-party copy of the Delaware register lists entity number 5304130 under the former name Trico Group, LLC, with The Corporation Trust Company in Wilmington as registered agent, and shows registrations of First Brands Group, LLC as a foreign company in Michigan (802159536) and Ohio (4132192). That copy is an undated snapshot that shows neither the formation date nor the status, and the later GLEIF record names Registered Agent Solutions, Inc. as the address of the legal seat. ^{5 6 7}

analysisThe company's Legal Entity Identifier, 2549005IXRZR7KSBJD91, was first registered on December 17, 2021. GLEIF lists the registration as lapsed: the record was last updated on October 18, 2025 and fell due for renewal the same day. It gives the legal address as c/o Registered Agent Solutions, Inc., 838 Walker Road, Suite 21-2, Dover, Delaware, and the headquarters as the Cleveland office; a GLEIF full-text search for "First Brands Group" published on October 15, 2026 returned only this record. The company's press release of October 13, 2025 announcing a leadership transition carried a Rochester Hills, Michigan dateline and described First Brands as a leading global supplier of aftermarket automotive parts. ^{2 3 8}

analysisFirst Brands sells replacement parts for vehicles under long-established brands. Describing itself in the January 2023 tender offer for Horizon Global as a global automotive parts company, it named Raybestos brakes, Centric Parts brake components, FRAM and Luber-finer filtration products, TRICO and ANCO wiper blades, Carter fuel and water pumps, Autolite spark plugs, StrongArm lift supports and StopTech performance brakes. The debtors' first-day declaration groups the brands into four product categories. By the company's estimates for the preceding twelve months, braking products were the largest, at about 33% of revenue, followed by vision and lighting at about 29%, repair and towing at about 24% and filtration at about 14%. ^{1 2}

analysisAccording to the same declaration, about 82% of revenue came from aftermarket parts, 13% from sales to original equipment manufacturers and about 5% from specialty and industrial customers. Aftermarket buyers included Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone, O'Reilly and NAPA Auto Parts as well as wholesale distributors and national retailers such as Walmart, Costco and Amazon, and the ten largest customers accounted for less than half of total net sales over the previous three years. At the petition date the group employed about 26,000 people across five continents, about 6,000 of them at the debtors in the United States. About 75% of revenue came from products sourced in North America. The company operated 36 factories and two distribution centers in Mexico, where about 14,000 employees were based and from where 57% of its U.S. sales volume was sourced. ²

analysisCounsel for Patrick James gave a different account of the business while defending the founder against the estate's claims. The court filing describes First Brands as owning 25 well-known brands supplying the largest aftermarket customers and original equipment manufacturers, says sales grew from $500 million in 2018 to $5 billion in 2024, and attributes the liquidity squeeze that preceded the Chapter 11 filings to tariffs, which it says raised landed inventory costs by about $99 million between April and August 2025. The sales figures and the tariff explanation are the filer's assertions. The debtors' own first-day declaration also cites tariffs, but together with mounting debt and lease obligations, particularly to the lessor Onset, as causes of the liquidity crisis. ^{3 2}

analysisThe list of affiliated debtors attached to First Brands Group, LLC's petition of September 28, 2025 covers the group's operating companies. It includes Champion Laboratories, Inc., Autolite Operations LLC, Carter Fuel Systems, LLC, Walbro LLC with Walbro Midco LLC and WEM US Co., and Toledo Molding & Die, LLC; Brake Parts Inc LLC, Cardone Industries, Inc., Dalton Corporation, Qualitor Automotive, LLC, Trico Products Corporation, Pylon Manufacturing Corp. with Pylon South Bend, Inc., and Hopkins Manufacturing Corporation with Carrand Companies, Inc., Jasper Rubber Products, Inc. and ASC Industries, Inc.; and UCI International, LLC with UCI International Holdings Parent Inc. and UCI International Holdings, Inc. According to the debtors' ownership statement, First Brands Group Holdings, LLC owns, directly or indirectly, 100% of every debtor outside the Viceroy group. ¹

analysisFive Horizon Global companies are on the same list: Horizon Global Corporation, Horizon Global Company LLC, Horizon Global Americas Inc., Horizon International Holdings LLC and Horizon Euro Finance LLC. The list dates the petitions September 28, 2025, while the court docket shows the Horizon cases, Nos. 25-90414 to 25-90418, opened on September 29, 2025 and jointly administered under the First Brands Group, LLC case, No. 25-90399. The docket records further subsidiaries' cases under the same lead case, among them FRAMAuto Holdings, LLC (No. 25-90401), Autolite Operations LLC (No. 25-90402), FRAM Group Operations LLC (No. 25-90403), FRAM Group IP LLC (No. 25-90404), Champion Laboratories, Inc. (No. 25-90445), Trico Products Corporation (No. 25-90472), Trico Holding Corporation (No. 25-90476), Brake Parts Inc LLC (No. 25-90477), Dalton Corporation (No. 25-90492) and Cardone Industries, Inc. (No. 25-90493). FRAMAuto Holdings, LLC, also known as Oculus LLC, filed its own case on September 28, 2025 and is recorded in a docket summary as 100% owned by First Brands Group, LLC. ^{1 2 3}

analysisPatrick James signed the omnibus consent authorising the group's Chapter 11 filings in three capacities: as Manager of 47 limited liability companies of the group, among them Autolite Operations, FRAM Group Operations, Horizon Global Company, Carter Fuel Systems, Qualitor Automotive, Brake Parts Inc, UCI International, Walbro, Eagle Machining, Toledo Molding & Die and the Viceroy-group special purpose vehicles Carnaby Inventory IV, LLC and Carnaby FA, LLC; as sole director of 39 group corporations, among them Pylon Manufacturing, Trico Products, Cardone Industries, Champion Laboratories, Hopkins Manufacturing, Horizon Global Corporation, Horizon Global Americas and Dalton Corporation; and, with Shekhar Kumar, as one of the two directors of two Dalton manufacturing-facility corporations. ¹

analysisThe group's special purpose vehicles (SPVs) filed first. The docket records Chapter 11 cases opened on September 24, 2025 for Global Assets LLC (No. 25-90383), Global Lease Assets Holdings, LLC, Carnaby Capital Holdings, LLC (No. 25-90385), Broad Street Financial Holdings, LLC (No. 25-90386), Broad Street Financial, LLC (No. 25-90387), Carnaby Inventory II, LLC (No. 25-90388), Carnaby Inventory III, LLC (No. 25-90390), Patterson Inventory, LLC (No. 25-90392, the lead case for the Patterson and Starlight entities) and Starlight Inventory I, LLC (No. 25-90394). ^{1 2}

analysisThe docket lists the debtors at one common address, 127 Public Square, Suite 5300, Cleveland, Ohio: operating companies such as Cardone Industries, Inc. and Carrand Companies, Inc. as well as the SPVs Carnaby Capital Holdings, LLC, Carnaby FA, LLC, Carnaby Inventory II, LLC, Carnaby Inventory III, LLC and Carnaby Inventory IV, LLC and their holding companies. A shared mailing address in the case records reflects the group's common administration; it does not by itself show ownership or control. ¹

analysisGLEIF records add former names and locations for several subsidiaries. Horizon Global Corporation, with its headquarters at 2600 West Big Beaver Road, Troy, Michigan, is named as the direct parent of Horizon Global Company LLC, which has the same Troy headquarters; both, like Toledo Molding & Die, LLC and Brake Parts Inc LLC, give their legal address c/o Registered Agent Solutions, Inc. in Dover, Delaware. Horizon Global Americas Inc., headquartered at 47912 Halyard Drive, Plymouth, Michigan, was formerly Cequent Towing Products, Inc. and Cequent Performance Products, Inc. Toledo Molding & Die, LLC, formerly Toledo Molding & Die, Inc., is headquartered at 1429 Coining Drive, Toledo, Ohio, and Brake Parts Inc LLC at 4400 Prime Parkway, McHenry, Illinois. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisState and foreign registers show how far the group reached. In Florida, FRAM Group Operations LLC was registered on April 4, 2011 as a foreign Delaware limited liability company (document M11000001713), with FRAMAuto Holdings, LLC of the Cleveland address as its member and authorized person and Registered Agent Solutions, Inc. as registered agent; the registration was revoked on September 25, 2026 for failure to file an annual report, the last having been filed on March 26, 2025. In the United Kingdom, the Companies House register lists Trico Investments Corporation, a U.S. company with a correspondence address at 127 Public Square, Suite 5110, Cleveland, as the only person with significant control of Trico Limited (company number 00234268), notified on April 6, 2016: it holds 75% or more of the shares and voting rights and the right to appoint or remove directors. ^{5 6 7}