A summer camp in the suburbs north of New York City just sold for $120.75 million. Five months earlier, an independent appraisal had valued it at $85.8 million. The buyer paid roughly $35 million more than the paper said the place was worth, about 41 percent above it, and it did so at a bankruptcy auction, the kind of sale that usually produces discounts rather than premiums.
The camp is Mohawk Day Camp in Westchester County, and the bankruptcy was never really Mohawk's. It belonged to Mohawk's parent company. A distressed owner and a distressed business turned out to be two different things, and the auction put a number on the difference.
What $120.75 Million Actually Bought
FitzWalter Capital Partners, a global private investment firm, won Mohawk at a court-supervised auction, and a New Jersey bankruptcy judge approved the sale on August 10. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions. Mohawk is more than a few fields rented out for eight weeks. It runs a summer day camp and a year-round country day school on one Westchester property, with a performing arts center, eight in-ground heated pools, two roller-hockey rinks, a petting zoo, waterslides, and a $250,000 playground.
The enrollment explains the price better than the land does. About 1,900 campers attended in 2025, with tuition running from $6,000 for three weeks to $13,100 for seven, in one of the wealthier suburbs in the country. The December appraisal projected 2026 revenue of about $22.85 million and net operating income, the cash a property produces after running costs, of roughly $9.4 million. A camp generating close to $9.4 million on $22.85 million of revenue runs at a margin most operating businesses would envy.
Why the Bankruptcy Belonged to the Owner
Mohawk's parent, SIMAD Holdings, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 4 after defaulting on bond debt, according to court filings, which forced the sale of a portfolio of roughly 30 camps serving about 20,500 children each summer. The court process ultimately raised nearly $448.8 million to repay creditors.
The camps did not sell like distressed goods, though. Twenty-two of them cleared auction at about $368 million, roughly 7 percent above their 2025 appraised values. Mohawk cleared far above that 7 percent. The parent company had a financing problem. The camps had buyers competing to own them. At Mohawk, that competition included David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, whose personal company set the opening offer at $68 million and pushed to nearly $81 million before losing. FitzWalter's winning bid came in close to 50 percent above that final number.
Why a Firm That Buys Troubled Companies Wanted a Summer Camp
FitzWalter does not usually buy summer camps. The firm was founded in 2020 by senior alumni of Macquarie's principal finance business, runs offices in London, New York, and Hamburg, and specializes in complicated situations: companies and properties caught in transition or financial stress. Its second fund closed at about $1.4 billion, and the firm manages roughly $2.3 billion. Co-founder Ben Brazil has described the strategy plainly, telling Bloomberg the firm hunts for "stuck" companies weighed down by debt from overpriced deals, where the borrowing is the problem and the underlying business is sound.
Mohawk reads as a clean version of that setup: a healthy operating camp sitting inside an unhealthy capital structure. In its announcement, FitzWalter emphasized continuity, saying it intends to act as the camp's next steward and to keep working with the existing leadership and staff. In a camp business, that continuity is more than public relations. The director, the staff culture, and the repeat enrollment they generate are part of the operating value a buyer is acquiring.
Takeaways for Investors
Distress at the Top Doesn't Set the Price Below It
A parent company's bankruptcy says little about the operating businesses inside it. Mohawk's clearing price tracked its own enrollment and cash flow rather than its owner's balance sheet, and buyers priced it accordingly.
A Camp Is Real Estate and a Business at Once
Buyers were paying for more than Westchester land: a running day camp, a year-round school, and the seasonal revenue that comes with both. That combination is what carried Mohawk past its appraisal.
Continuity Has Measurable Value in Camp Deals
FitzWalter's emphasis on retaining leadership and staff reads as more than reassurance for parents. Staff, reputation, and repeat enrollment travel with a camp, and a buyer who keeps them protects the revenue that justified the price.
