BOSTON, June 6, 2024 -- Yellow Wood Partners LLC ("Yellow Wood"), a Boston-based private equity firm focused on investing in consumer brands and companies, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Elida Beauty brands from Unilever (NYSE: UL). The Elida Beauty portfolio of storied consumer brands includes Q-tips®, Caress, Ponds and St. Ives (for North America and Europe only), Impulse, Noxzema, Monsavon, and Timotei, among others. The new company has global reach with offices in Dallas, London, and Paris.
In conjunction with the closing, Alfie Vivian, a seasoned C-level consumer packaged goods executive, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Elida to work with the Yellow Wood team to develop the next chapter of the company's growth. Mr. Vivian most recently served as Senior Vice President / Group General Manager of Tyson Foods. Prior to that, he was with Unilever in different geographies for nearly 30 years in senior general management and brand building roles. He operated in North America for 10+ years managing multi-billion dollar businesses.
Tad Yanagi, Partner at Yellow Wood Partners, commented, "We are excited to complete this carve out with Unilever and formally welcome Alfie Vivian and the Elida Beauty team into the Yellow Wood family. Elida Beauty's brands are recognized around the world and align perfectly with our existing portfolio. Alfie's and our collective brand building experience across North American and international markets will help unlock Elida's global growth potential as a newly independent company."
Dana Schmaltz, Yellow Wood Partner, commented, "We have a successful formula and broad expertise to identify great consumer brands that can benefit from independent, focused ownership. The true nature of success in completing these corporate carveouts is based in the Yellow Wood Consumer Operating DNA® strategy. This playbook, executed by our team, allows us to work seamlessly with the large global CPG companies to create the stand alone operating infrastructures necessary to begin these brands' evolution as independent companies. Our expertise allows us to do this in very short time frames which benefits the corporate seller, our retail partners and, most importantly, the brands and their consumers as these transitions can create confusion and brands can suffer. Elida Beauty is another example of our disciplined approach where we believe these brands can benefit from additional investment and highly focused attention as an independent company. This marks our second carve out from Unilever following our successful experience working with them on our acquisition of the Suave brand last year, and, Elida is our fifth corporate carve out in the last four years from large multi-national CPG companies including Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Reckitt Benckiser, Haleon, and Unilever."
Mr. Vivian, CEO of Elida Beauty, said, "Yellow Wood's creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, and commitment to excellence combined with the Elida Beauty team's experience will continue our evolution into a powerful multi-brand beauty company. Yellow Wood's partnership allows us to build on the legacy of these brands and accelerate development of our product portfolio across global markets."
Yellow Wood's diverse portfolio now includes over 50 consumer brands with total retail sales of approximately $3 billion. Yellow Wood's family of brands include beauty and personal care products company The Suave Brands Company, which includes the Suave and ChapStick brands; 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; self-tanning brands Isle of Paradise, Tanologist and TanLuxe; skincare brand Byoma; and PPI Beauty, Inc., which includes Real Techniques and, Ecotools.
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 to increase operating efficiencies. The firm further seeks to acquire additional brands to accelerate growth in its limited number of platform companies. For more information, please visit www.yellowwoodpartners.com.
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