Sector Deals of the Week—Yellow Wood Launches Its Next Platform with Acquisition of Freeman Beauty

Less than two months following the sale of PDC Brands for $1.425 billion to CVC Capital Partners, Yellow Wood Partners announced the acquisition of Freeman Beauty to jumpstart its next beauty care platform. Founded in 1976, Freeman Beauty has established a mass-focused, nature-inspired portfolio of skin care, hair care, foot care and specialty bath and body products, with strong market positions in the mass facial mask and dry shampoo categories. The company maintains broad distribution across the food, drug, mass and specialty channels and sells primarily under its Feeling Beautiful, Beauty Infusion, Psssst!, Bare Foot, C. Booth and Feeling Legendary brands.

With its newly launched $370 million fund, Yellow Wood Partners seeks to recreate the success of its previous PDC platform which consisted of six add-on acquisitions over a five year period, quadrupling revenue and growing EBITDA by over 5x. Under its Freeman Beauty investment, Yellow Wood seeks to introduce new products into existing categories, expand distribution both in the U.S. and internationally, and pursue complementary add-on acquisitions. Yellow Wood acquired Freeman Beauty in partnership with CEO Jon Achenbaum and the senior management team.