Stellex Capital Management has acquired family-owned baked goods maker J. Skinner Baking.
Skinner is a provider of ready-to-eat baked goods through grocery in-store bakeries (ISB), foodservice providers, and co-pack partnerships. The company’s products – including danishes, muffins, cinnamon rolls, brownies, and bars – are sold in over 30,000 retail locations across all 50 states. J. Skinner makes and sells more than 300 million pastries a year.
Omaha, Nebraska-headquartered J. Skinner was founded by Lloyd Skinner and his son Jim Skinner in 1983 and now employs over 800 people. According to Stellex, J. Skinner is one of the largest In-Store Bakery (ISB) providers in the United States.
“Stellex has supported the business with significant incremental day-one capital and liquidity to enable the company’s aggressive expansion plans,” said Audie Keaton, the CEO of J. Skinner. “This new partnership will seek to strengthen our existing operations, support the company’s long-term growth agenda, drive sustainability, and bring value to J. Skinner’s employees, the Omaha community, and our nationwide customer base.”
Simultaneous with the closing, the company has named Doug Davidson, an experienced bakery operator, as its president and chief operating officer. Prior to joining J. Skinner, Mr. Davidson was the president and CEO of Hill & Valley, an Illinois-based maker of sugar-free pies, cookies and cakes. Hill & Valley is a past portfolio company of Quilvest Private Equity and was sold to publicly traded J&J Snack Foods in 2017. Earlier in his career Mr. Davidson held senior management positions at Horizon Food Group and Nemo’s Bakery.
“With a long history of driving value for its strategic retail partners through baked goods innovation, quality, and service, J. Skinner is now equipped for its next stage of product and capability expansion,” said Trey Lee, a managing director at Stellex. “We are thrilled to welcome Doug to the team and invest behind this inflection point with our capital and strategic resources as the company moves further to meet customers at their critical points of need.”
New York City-headquartered Stellex invests from $50 million to $150 million in United States or Europe-based companies with enterprise values from $50 million to $500 million and revenues greater than $100 million. Sectors of interest include specialty manufacturing, industrial and business services, aerospace and defense, automotive, government services, transportation, logistics, and food. Stellex has additional offices in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and London.
DA Davidson, Riparian Partners, and Burlington Capital were the financial advisors to J. Skinner.
© 2024 Private Equity Professional | July 2, 2024
