Unilever announces the sale of Suave in North America to Yellow Wood Partners LLC

Unilever has today announced the sale of its Suave brand in North America to Yellow Wood Partners LLC. The Suave beauty and personal care brand includes hair care, skin care, skin cleansing and deodorant products.

Esi Eggleston Bracey, President of Unilever USA and CEO of Unilever Personal Care North America, said, “This is another step on our path to shift our portfolio towards strategic growth spaces. Suave has been a much-loved brand since the 1930s, and I am confident it will continue to thrive and serve consumers under its new ownership in North America.”

Dana Schmaltz, Partner of Yellow Wood Partners, said, “Suave is ubiquitously recognized for its long history of providing accessible high-quality beauty products to American consumers and we are excited to add it to our portfolio of investments. We especially want to thank Unilever for its collaboration as we move forward to completing this carveout.”

Suave will continue to be owned and operated by Unilever outside of the US and Canada.

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2023, subject to regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Financial terms of the agreement are undisclosed.

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Personal Care, Beauty & Wellbeing, Home Care, Nutrition, and Ice Cream products, with sales in over 190 countries and products used by 3.4 billion people every day. Worldwide, we have 148,000 employees and generated sales of €60.1 billion in 2022. Our leading brands in North America include Dove, Knorr, Hellmann’s, Magnum, Axe, Ben & Jerry’s, Talenti, Degree, Seventh Generation, TRESemmé, Shea Moisture, Vaseline, Liquid I.V., OLLY, Dermalogica, Living Proof, and Hourglass.

Our vision is to be the global leader in sustainable business and to demonstrate how our purpose-led, future-fit business model drives superior performance. We have a long tradition of being a progressive, responsible business.

The Unilever Compass, our sustainable business strategy, is set out to help us deliver superior performance and drive sustainable and responsible growth, while:

• improving the health of the planet;
• improving people's health, confidence and wellbeing;
• and contributing to a fairer and more socially inclusive world.

For more information on Unilever U.S. and its brands visit: www.unileverusa.com

For more information on Unilever Canada and its brands visit: www.unilever.ca

About Yellow Wood Partners

Yellow Wood Partners is a Boston-based private investment firm that invests exclusively in the consumer industry in the middle market. The firm seeks to acquire branded consumer products that sell into a variety of consumer channels, including mass, drug, food, specialty, value, club and e-commerce. Yellow Wood’s Consumer Operating DNA investment and operating strategy is based on utilizing the firm’s functional operating resources to help maximize brand performance by driving organic growth and increasing operating efficiencies while acquiring additional brands into a limited number of platform companies in its concentrated investment portfolio. For more information, please visit www.yellowwoodpartners.com.

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