Haleon to sell ChapStick for $430m

Yellow Wood Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, has today announced that its portfolio company Suave Brands Company has signed a binding offer to acquire the ChapStick brand from Haleon, a global leader in consumer health.

Suave Brands Company Chief Executive Officer, Daniel Alter, said, “The Yellow Wood team established Suave Brands Company in May 2023 to acquire the Suave brand from Unilever. We saw the opportunity to grow Suave with a more focused management approach while also creating the corporate infrastructure to acquire and manage additional personal care brands across multiple categories to drive synergies across the platform. We are excited to add ChapStick, another leading brand with deep equity and history, into our platform.”

ChapStick invented the lip care category in the 1880s with the launch of a now-iconic lip balm that transformed ChapStick into a household name. For over a century, ChapStick has added products to its portfolio with innovative new ingredients, skincare benefits, and flavours.

Dana Schmaltz, Partner at Yellow Wood Partners, commented, “ChapStick is the #1 lip care brand in the mass, drug, food and convenience store channels. ChapStick products are purchased by one out of every five households in the United States; consumers love the brand. ChapStick has the highest brand awareness in lip care, as well as the strongest purchase conversion among all brands in the category. Similar to Suave, ChapStick will benefit from Suave Brands Company’s leadership, setting the brand up for continued innovation and growth driven by increased consumer marketing investments, as well as a more focused sales approach.”

Suave is an affordable personal care brand that offers a wide variety of hair, body, and skin products for women, men, and kids. It was one of the first brands in the 1930s to bring salon-quality hair care to the public at an accessible price. Today, Suave is found in one out of every two US households.

The deal is intended to close in the first half of 2024 upon completion of customary closing and regulatory approvals.