Los Angeles-based private equity firm Transom Capital Group has acquired Gene Juarez Salons & Spas, a Seattle fashion and beauty brand, from private equity firm Evergreen Pacific Partners.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Evergreen Pacific, a private equity firm based in Seattle, purchased Gene Juarez in 2006.
Ty Schultz, managing partner at Transom Capital, said he had been an interim chief executive of Gene Juarez following Evergreen Pacific’s acquisition but later stepped down to take his current post. He said he sees an opportunity to expand the salon and spa network beyond the Seattle market and didn’t rule out acquisitions as part of a strategy.
“There may be an expansion – still to be determined – out of the Puget Sound area,” he said.
Gene Juarez Salons & Spas, which operates 10 locations in the Seattle area, offers a complete range of salon services and exclusive spa treatments essential to maintaining personal image, health and well-being. Its designers, artists and therapists offer expertise in hair with design and color customized for each individual.
Each of the salon and spa locations generates between $5 million and $10 million annually, and is 25,000 square feet.
“We evaluated many potential partners, and the team at Transom fundamentally understood and believed in the brand and saw the significant potential to deepen our existing client and community connections and to further expand them,” said Gene Juarez Chief Executive Scott Missad.
ProducePay Raises $14M
Downtown-based ProducePay, a company that provides farmers with financial resources, tech tools and data insights, announced it raised $14 million in a sixth round of funding.
The Series B funding came from Marina del Rey-based venture capital firm Moonshots Capital, Anterra Capital and Rabo Frontier Ventures in the Netherlands, Phoenix-based Social Leverage, Greenhouse Capital Partners in Sausalito, and New York-based venture capital firms Coventure, FJ Labs and Tribeca Angels.
ProducePay previously raised $7.5 million in equity in three previous rounds of funding and $90 million in two rounds of debt funding, according to a company spokeswoman.
Funds from the latest round will be used to finance ProducePay’s next growth phase as it scales its financing business and develops its software platform. The company financed $400 million worth of produce in 2017, up from $17 million in 2015, the year it launched.
ProducePay has provided liquidity to more than 600 growers and distributors in six countries, financing more than $850 million of produce so far.
ProducePay Chief Executive Pablo Borquez Schwarzbeck explained that financing is a critical component of any effort to improve farm yields.
ProducePay reaches out to farms to buy their crops at a price that the company sets up front, then goes out and sells those crops on the market. Produce Pay takes a commission or percentage on profitable sales. There’s not charge on a break-even deal for the farmer or a sale of produce at a loss.
For the farmer, it’s a way to guarantee cash flow on the front end, so they can make investments with an eye to improving operations, Schwarzbeck said.
By using the crop as collateral, Schwarzbeck’s company manages to avoid forcing farmers to put up their farms as collateral − the phenomenon that forced many farmers into bankruptcy in the ’80s and hastened the advent of industrial farming.
Have a deal tip? Pat Maio can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8329.
