Yellow Wood Partners LLC, a Boston-based private equity firm focused on investing in consumer brands and companies, has completed the previously announced acquisition of the beauty and personal care brand, Suave, in North America from Unilever (NYSE: UL).
With the completion of the transaction, Yellow Wood Partners is creating the Suave Brands Company (SBC), a newly formed stand-alone business created to support the Suave brand under the leadership of newly appointed CEO Daniel Alter, a 20-year Unilever veteran with global strategy and operations expertise. The company will be headquartered in New Jersey.
Dana Schmaltz, Partner of Yellow Wood Partners, said, “The widely known Suave brand has a long heritage and strong consumer loyalty, selling over 250 million units annually and is present in 1 out of every 2 homes in America. Our firm’s extensive experience working with multi-national branded consumer packaged goods companies, such as Unilever, Bayer and Reckitt, will enable us to successfully transition Suave to an independent company within the Yellow Wood portfolio and accelerate its growth. Our deep expertise in the consumer goods sector and with large mass, grocery, drug, and ecommerce retailers will help us enhance Suave’s closeness with consumers and product innovation. In addition to carving out Suave and establishing an independent infrastructure, we are building the Suave Brands Company into a beauty & personal care platform focused on democratizing trends, making them accessible to a broader consumer base. To deliver on this goal, the Suave Brands Company will acquire beauty & personal care brands across multiple categories, including hair, skin, body, and more, that will drive synergies across the platform.”
Suave, the foundational brand of the Suave Brands Company, was one of the first brands in the 1930s to bring salon-quality hair care to the general public at an accessible price. The Suave brand sells beauty & personal care products for women, men and kids across mass retailers, grocery stores, drug retailers, and ecommerce platforms. The brand’s products include hair care and body care products including shampoos, conditioners, hair styling products, body wash, antiperspirants and deodorants, and skin care.
Tad Yanagi, Partner of Yellow Wood Partners, commented, “We are excited about Suave’s ability to benefit from the growing consumer demand for value-based brands. There is great opportunity to do more with Suave’s leading brand awareness and consumer loyalty and to lead that effort we are pleased to welcome Daniel Alter as CEO. His and Yellow Wood’s deep branded CPG experiences will help Suave execute on new growth levers to build the business and identify new personal care brand acquisitions.”
Mr. Alter brings to Suave Brands Company 20 years of global strategy, brand development, and general management experience during his tenure in international operating roles across beauty & personal care with Unilever. “I am excited to partner with Yellow Wood to lead the Suave Brands company and set the brand up for its next stage of growth. Our shared vision is to build the Suave Brands Company into an industry leading beauty & personal care platform, delivering high quality products at an accessible price for consumers across North America.”
In addition to Suave, Yellow Wood’s diverse portfolio of consumer brands includes leading global footcare brand Dr. Scholl’s and Scholl International; Beacon Wellness Brands, led by its anchor brand PlusOne®, the #1 sexual wellness device brand; beauty brands Real Techniques and EcoTools; self-tanning brands Isle of Paradise, Tanologist and TanLuxe; and skincare brands Byoma and Freeman Beauty.
Houlihan Lokey acted as financial advisor to Yellow Wood on the transaction. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP provided legal counsel to Yellow Wood.
About Yellow Wood Partners
Yellow Wood Partners is a Boston-based private investment firm that invests exclusively in the consumer industry in the middle market. The firm seeks to acquire branded consumer products that sell into a variety of consumer channels, including mass, drug, food, specialty, value, club and e-commerce. Yellow Wood’s Consumer Operating DNA investment and operating strategy is based on utilizing the firm’s functional operating resources to help maximize brand performance by driving organic growth and increasing operating efficiencies while acquiring additional brands into a limited number of platform companies in its concentrated investment portfolio. For more information, please visit www.yellowwoodpartners.com.
