AEA Announces Acquisition of Visual Comfort and Business Combination with Generation Brands
AEA Investors’ Middle Market Private Equity team announced today that its fund has acquired Visual Comfort & Co.
New York – February 28, 2017 – AEA Investors’ (“AEA” or the “Firm”) Middle Market Private Equity team announced today that its fund has acquired Visual Comfort & Co. (“Visual Comfort” or the “Company”) and will combine the Company with existing portfolio company, Generation Brands, to create Visual Comfort Group (the “Combined Company”).
The combination of Visual Comfort and Generation Brands brings together two of the leading decorative lighting platforms in the industry, creating the premier platform in the mid-tier and premium residential lighting segments. Visual Comfort is the market leader in decorative designer lighting with a broad range of aesthetic tastes at premium price points. The combination with Generation Brands creates a suite of high quality lighting products that spans the full range of price points and design aesthetics, creating a “whole space solution” within decorative lighting. The acquisition represents an opportunity to partner with Founder and President, Andy Singer, who has built Visual Comfort into a leading decorative lighting brand over the past 30 years.
About AEA
AEA Investors LP was founded in 1968 by the Rockefeller, Mellon and Harriman family interests and S.G. Warburg & Co. as a private investment vehicle for a select group of industrial family offices with substantial assets. AEA has an extraordinary global network built over many years which includes leading industrial families, business executives and leaders; many of whom invest with AEA as active individual investors (“Participants”) and/or join its portfolio company boards or act in other advisory roles. Today, AEA’s approximately 65 investment professionals operate globally with offices in New York, Connecticut, London, Munich and Shanghai. The firm manages funds that have approximately $10 billion of invested and committed capital including the leveraged buyouts of middle market companies and small business companies and mezzanine and senior debt investments. AEA Private Equity invests across three sectors: value added industrials, consumer, and services.
About Generation Brands
Generation Brands is one of America’s leading lighting companies serving lighting retailers and the electrical wholesale, home improvement and building industries. Generation Brands has an outstanding portfolio of residential and commercial lighting fixtures and ceiling fans which provide value to its customers and end users with superior service, leading edge design and outstanding quality.
About Visual Comfort
Since 1987, Visual Comfort & Co. has been the premier resource for signature designer lighting. For nearly 30 years, Visual Comfort has produced lighting with some of the most influential names in design using natural materials of exceptional quality and distinctive, hand-applied, living finishes. Visual Comfort offers a broad assortment of lighting featuring many prominent designs synonymous with high style and functionality.
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