Yellow Wood Partners Announces Acquisition of Freeman Beauty

First Investment from Fund II Continues Focus on Consumer Branded Companies

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Aug 14, 2017, 07:30 ET

BOSTON, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Yellow Wood Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm focused on investing in consumer brands and companies, today announced the acquisition of Freeman Beauty, a leading specialty beauty company with a portfolio of brands across the skin care, hair care, foot care and specialty bath and body categories, from Champlain Capital, a private equity firm with offices in San Francisco and Boston. Yellow Wood is investing in Freeman in partnership with CEO Jon Achenbaum and the company's senior management team.

Dana Schmaltz, Founding Partner of Yellow Wood Partners, said, "Freeman is a beauty industry pioneer that has created strong differentiated brand identity throughout its history. The company's brands are recognized as leaders in the mass facial mask and dry shampoo categories and enjoy broad distribution in mass and specialty oriented beauty and personal care channels. Yellow Wood's focus is to partner with great brands with strong consumer loyalty where we can help accelerate growth and assist with cost efficiencies. We have great confidence in the future potential of Freeman's brands and look forward to working with Jon Achenbaum and his team to fully expand into new and existing channels."

Freeman's iconic brands serve categories with explosive growth and include Feeling Beautiful, the #1 facial mask brand in the mass market. Freeman has a proven track record over the last several years of innovation across its portfolio of brands, which also includes Beauty Infusions facial masks, Psssst! dry shampoo, c.Booth bath and body care products, and Bare Foot foot treatments. Freeman's brands are marketed in the food, drug, mass, and specialty beauty retail sectors, in addition to e-commerce channels. Freeman is based in Los Angeles and for more information, visit www.freemanbeauty.com.

Jon Achenbaum, CEO of Freeman, said, "We believe there is a substantial opportunity to grow distribution with all of our customers, and especially to expand outside of the U.S. and Canada into international markets including South America and Europe. The team at Yellow Wood fully understands our brands and customers, and together with their functional-area operating experience can help expand our products to new and existing categories and identify consumers around the world who will enjoy our products."

Tad Yanagi, Partner at Yellow Wood, said, "Freeman has a proven track record of bringing nature-inspired and efficacious products quickly to the mass channel and we expect to optimize their new product development initiatives by focusing on the key brands. We hope to leverage our success in beauty and personal care to build on Freeman's leading position in the market and help guide the company through an extraordinary period of growth."

Yellow Wood recently completed fund raising for its oversubscribed Yellow Wood Capital Partners II LP, with $370 million of committed capital. In July, the firm completed the $1.425 billion sale of PDC Brands, a rapidly growing provider of beauty, personal care, and wellness brands, after quadrupling the company's revenue and growing EBITDA by over five times.

About Freeman Beauty

As leaders in the beauty category for over 40 years, Freeman Beauty focuses on on-trend, nature inspired, fun, pampering, high-performing products at an accessible price. Prioritizing specialty beauty, Freeman Beauty offers a wide variety of easy to use, solution-based products across multiple categories. The Company offers a wide range of facial masks, dry shampoo, specialty bath & body, and foot care products that provide a spa-like experience in the comfort of your own home. The brand portfolio includes category leading Freeman Feeling Beautiful facial masks, Freeman Beauty Infusion serum-infused facial masks, Freeman Feeling Legendary facial masks for men, Freeman Bare Foot pampering foot care products, Psssst! dry shampoo, and c.Booth bath & body care products.

About Champlain Capital

Champlain Capital is a private equity firm with offices in San Francisco and Boston that invests in consumer, industrial, and businesses services. For more information, please visit www.champlaincapital.com.

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 across a variety of channels including mass, drug, food, specialty, club and e-commerce. Yellow Wood's success in driving growth and operational efficiencies is based on the team's combination of investment expertise and complementary marketing, sales, finance, operations, and international skills which creates strong partnerships with the management teams of portfolio companies. For more information, please visit www.yellowwoodpartners.com.

Contact: Chris Tofalli
Chris Tofalli Public Relations, LLC
914-834-4334

Disclaimer: This does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security of the funds managed by Yellow Wood Partners, in any state or jurisdiction. An offering may only be made by means of a final offering memorandum in those jurisdictions where permitted by law and only to investors meeting eligibility requirements. The past performance of the investment team should not be construed as an indicator of future performance.

SOURCE Yellow Wood Partners