Deal Details
Sale to Irving Place Capital
Summary
Baird served as the lead financial advisor to Bendon, Inc. on this transaction.
About
Bendon, Inc. (“Bendon” or the “Company”), a portfolio company of The Wicks Group of Companies, L.L.C (“Wicks Group”), was recently acquired by Irving Place Capital (“IPC”). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.Bendon is the leader of licensed brand activity and early development products in the United States. The Company utilizes its in-house creative team to develop innovative, fresh and high-quality products that represent the best value proposition in the industry. The Company maintains 80+ active licensed brands with world-class partners including Disney, Nickelodeon, Hasbro and Hello Kitty and goes to market with a broad assortment of over 2,000 SKUs. Its products include coloring & activity products, educational products, puzzles, story / board books, and kits, sets and play packs. Bendon distributes its products through a diverse multi-channel network including mass, value and specialty retail segments, in addition to its e-commerce platform – and has exclusive access to more than three million plan-o-gram pockets in more than 80,000 retail locations. Bendon experienced strong growth by organically expanding its customer base and broadening its retail “real estate”, licenses and product offering, and successfully acquired Dalmatian Press and Artistic Studios in the early childhood development category. Bendon was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Ashland, Ohio.
The Wicks Group is a private equity firm that invests in lower-middle-market companies operating in selected segments of the information, education and media industries principally in the United States and Canada. Since its founding in 1989, Wicks has invested over $1 billion of capital in 28 platform companies and approximately 100 add-on acquisitions. Wicks group is based in New York, New York.
IPC is a middle-market private equity firm that invests in buyouts, recapitalizations and growth capital opportunities. The firm focuses on making control or entrepreneur-driven investments in retail and consumer, industrial and packaging companies where it can apply its substantial operating and strategic resources and expertise to enhance value. Since its formation in 1997, IPC has been an investor in 60 companies and has raised over $4 billion of equity capital, including its current $2.7 billion institutional fund. IPC is based in New York, New York.
For additional information about this transaction, please contact:
- Date
- March 2015
- Company
- Bendon, Inc.
- Transaction
- M&A
- Sectors
- Consumer
- Target Geography
- North America
- Acquiror Geography
- North America
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