Dominus Capital has sold L2 Brands, a designer and manufacturer of apparel and headwear, to Sentinel Capital Partners.
Dominus formed L2 Brands in April 2018 to acquire and merge Legacy Athletica, a designer and supplier of vintage-inspired collegiate, resort and corporate headwear, apparel and home décor; and League Collegiate, a manufacturer of collegiate apparel and accessories.
Legacy Athletica was founded in 1992 by Mark Landgren and Paige Wingert, and League Collegiate was founded in 1991 by Drew Wolf and Larry Klebanoff.
Today, L2 Brands products – t-shirts, bottoms, headwear, wall signage, blankets, and pillows – are sold to collegiate, destination and leisure, and corporate markets under the League and Legacy brand names. The company has longstanding licensing arrangements with the majority of four-year colleges and customer relationships with bookstores, independent retailers, resorts and corporations.
L2 Brands, led by CEO Paige Wingert and President Pete Waldron, operates facilities in Pennsylvania and El Salvador and is headquartered 50 miles northwest of Baltimore in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
During its ownership term, Dominus assisted L2 Brands in expanding its product portfolio and sales channels and improved its nearshore manufacturing capabilities in El Salvador.
“We are grateful for partnering with Paige and his talented management team as they successfully executed on several important growth initiatives,” said Ashish Rughwani, a co-founder and partner at Dominus Capital. “After completing the merger of League Collegiate and Legacy Athletica in 2018, we collectively worked on cementing the company’s market leadership in licensed apparel and headwear. A third acquisition of One Coast enhanced the company’s sales infrastructure, and L2 Brands today is a leader in the college and resort market segments poised for tremendous, continued growth.”
“L2 has a three-decade reputation for offering leading brands, excellent customer service, and high-quality products,” said John Van Sickle, a partner at Sentinel. “Sentinel is excited to partner with L2 and its talented management team for its next chapter of growth.”
Sentinel has prior investment experience in the consumer products and specialty apparel sector with the acquisitions of RefrigiWear, a provider of industrial workwear for low-temperature environments (2021); GSM Outdoors, a provider of branded hunting and sport shooting products (2018 to 2020); Holley Performance Products, a provider of automotive aftermarket products (2015 to 2021), and Careismatic Brands, a provider of scrubs and medical uniforms (2006 to 2010).
New York City-based Sentinel invests in management buyouts, recapitalizations, corporate divestitures, and going-private transactions of businesses with EBITDAs up to $80 million. The firm targets eight industry sectors: aerospace and defense, business services, consumer, distribution, food and restaurants, franchising, healthcare, and industrials.
“The L2 Brands story is very similar to many other Dominus investments where both organic and acquisition growth are part of the strategy,” said Gary Binning, a co-founder of Dominus and the firm’s managing partner. “The resources we brought to L2 Brands enabled it to more than triple its size during our ownership period.”
Founded in 2008, New York-based Dominus Capital makes control equity investments in North American-based middle market companies that have EBITDA from $5 million to $30 million. Sectors of interest include business services, consumer products and services, and light industrial.
“Dominus helped us achieve significant scale to become one of the top collegiate licensees, diversify across end markets, and build a flexible, vertically integrated supply chain,” said Mr. Wingert. “The entire management team is thankful for Dominus’ support.”
Robert W. Baird & Co. was the financial advisor to L2 Brands and BMO Capital Markets was the financial advisor to Sentinel.
© 2022 Private Equity Professional | November 18, 2022
