New York – September 28, 2017 – AEA Investors’ (“AEA” or the “Firm”) Small Business Fund (“AEA SBF”) announced today that its fund has closed the acquisition of Barnet Products Corporation (“Barnet” or the “Company”). Barnet is a leading value-added distributor, developer and marketer of specialty cosmetic ingredients to the global beauty and personal care market.
Founded in 1987 by current President Steven Kosann and his wife, Carol Kosann, Barnet began as a U.S.-based sales representative for niche, innovative ingredients suppliers based in Asia and Europe who were seeking access to leading multinational cosmetic brands. Over the years, the Company has developed a unique sales and service model that focuses on selling fashion concepts and combinations of ingredients coupled with a sophisticated applications lab and technical support team. Barnet sells its ingredients to some of the largest beauty and personal care product companies in the world as well as up-and-coming indie brands and is highly regarded as a differentiated supply chain partner to both customers and suppliers.
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 70 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. AEA SBF is a strategy within AEA that currently manages nearly $1.0 billion of invested and committed capital. The team seeks to help grow and transform companies at the lower end of the middle market by sponsoring growing companies with proven management teams and superior business models.
About Barnet Products Corporation
Barnet is a global company with a commitment to finding, developing, and presenting fashionable new concepts, ingredients and systems to its customers. The Company develops and sources unique ingredients with specialty performance characteristics and develops applications, creating formulas and solutions for beauty and care brands. Barnet’s specialty ingredients portfolio consists of biological actives, which have the ability to affect the appearance of skin and hair, and specialty additives, which feature unique textures and drive the aesthetic feel of a given product.
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AEA Investors
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AEAIR@aeainvestors.com
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Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
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