Wind Point Partners has acquired U.S. Nonwovens (USN), a maker of home and personal care products including disinfectants, cosmetic and personal cleansing wipes, as well as laundry detergent, bleach and fabric softener.
Company-owned brand names include Ajax Laundry, Final Touch, Fab, Dynamo, Oxydol, RediWipes, SunnySoft, Luminoso, Breezy, and Bloom. USB customers include many Fortune 500 retailers including Walmart, as well as branded consumer products companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever. 
USN, headquartered on Long Island in Brentwood, NY, has eight manufacturing facilities and five warehouses and nearly 1,200 employees.
Excluded from this transaction are certain brands and facilities of USN including Old Williamsburgh Candle, FreshenUp, Drixoral, Tegrin, and Skeeter Beeter, which will be retained by the prior owners of USN and operated under a transition services agreement for a brief period.
USN executives and co-founders Shervin Mehdizadeh, Rody Mehdizadeh, and Sam Mehdizadeh are retaining a significant equity interest in the company, will remain involved with the business as advisors, and will have a seat on the board of directors. The Mehdizadehs will assist USN with add-on acquisitions within the over-the-counter, personal care and household products sectors, both for private label and branded customers
With the closing of this acquisition, Wind Point has named Matthew Stillings as USN’s new chief executive officer, and Chris Sliva as chairman of the board. Mr. Stillings was most recently the president and group executive of the water management division of publicly traded Rexnord (NYSE: RXN), a maker of drainage systems, valves and faucets, and backflow prevention products. Prior to Rexnord, he was a senior executive at IDEX where he led the company’s pumps and valves division.
Mr. Sliva was most recently the chief executive officer of AdvancePierre Foods, a maker of ready-to-eat lunch and dinner sandwiches that was sold by Oak Tree Capital to Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) in June 2017. Earlier he was the president and chief operating officer of Treehouse Foods, a private label food manufacturer, and president and chief operating officer of Dean Foods.
“We have a terrific opportunity at USN to capitalize on the growing trend in consumer-packaged goods toward outsourced manufacturing, as well as the growth in private label market share, by providing the market with innovative ways to meet everyday needs,” said Mr. Sliva.
“USN represents an ideal fit for Wind Point. Shervin, Rody and their family have built a terrific business with strong annual growth achieved through smarts, innovation and hard work. We look forward to working with them to build on their impressive track record,” said David Stott, a managing director of Wind Point. “We are also excited to partner with Matt, Chris and the entire USN team as they lead the company into a new phase of growth. We have a dynamic value creation plan that includes delivering on commitments to customers, investing in innovation and additional operational resources, and completing acquisitions to enhance the company’s portfolio of products.”
Wind Point invests from $50 million to $100 million in companies with EBITDAs of at least $10 million. Industries of interest include business services, consumer products and industrial products. In June 2017, Wind Point held a final closing of its eighth fund, Wind Point Partners VIII LP, with $985 million of capital commitments. The fund exceeded its initial hard cap of $750 million and is the largest fund closing in Wind Point’s history. The firm was founded in 1984 and is based in Chicago.
“We are thrilled to have Wind Point as our majority partner for several reasons. Key among them is the integrity of their leadership, along with their extensive experience in the consumer products space and a strong reputation of partnership and collaboration with the management teams they back,” said Shervin Mehdizadeh, co-founder and director of USN. “We are very excited to work with Wind Point to grow USN, and we see significant opportunities ahead for our company, terrific customers, and our hardworking and loyal employees.”
KPMG provided transaction advisory services to Wind Point on this transaction and Reed Smith provided legal services. Kirkland & Ellis was the legal advisor to the sellers USN and the Mehdizadeh family.
© 2019 Private Equity Professional | September 20, 2019
