Houlihan Lokey Advises Holland & Barrett

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that The Nature's Bounty Co. and The Carlyle Group have agreed to sell Holland & Barrett to L1 Retail for £1.8 billion ($2.3 billion).

L1 Retail, the retail investment arm of LetterOne, has agreed to purchase Holland & Barrett for £1.77 billion. Houlihan Lokey served as a financial advisor to The Carlyle Group and The Nature's Bounty Co. The transaction is expected to close by September 2017, subject to customary regulatory approvals. Further financial terms were not disclosed.

Originally founded in 1870, Holland & Barrett has grown to be Europe's largest health and wellness retail chain; it has stores in more than 1,150 locations worldwide, a significant, rapidly expanding online e-commerce capability, and a world-class leadership team supported by its global employee base of more than 4,200 associates and staff.

Headquartered in Nuneaton, UK, the company's annual revenues in 2016 exceeded £610 million, marking 32 consecutive quarters of like-for-like growth in the business, helped by significant investments into new store openings, the company's online sales platform, and click-and-collect retail capabilities and marketing campaigns (such as "The Good Life"). Continued international growth across Scandinavia, as well as in Holland & Barrett's partnerships with Tesco PLC in the UK, Apollo Hospitals Group in India, and A.S. Watson Group in Hong Kong, helped increase the company's international operations footprint to 16 countries.

The L1 Retail investment team aims to leverage its strong track record in retail to buy and build the next generation of retailers internationally. Led by Managing Partner Stephan DuCharme and supported by its Advisory Board of internationally renowned retail leaders, including Karl-Heinz Holland, Clive Humby, and John Walden, L1 Retail aims to add value through its deep sector and strategic expertise as well as its familiarity with data and financial markets.

The Carlyle Group was advised by Goldman Sachs, Houlihan Lokey, UBS, PwC, Latham & Watkins, and OC&C.

The Nature's Bounty Co. has a history of championing health and wellness tracing back 145 years. Putting science and the highest quality standards at the heart of its business, the brands of The Nature's Bounty Co. are some of the most trusted in the world. Always motivated by its commitment to excellence, its vision for health and wellness has inspired leading brands such as Nature's Bounty, Sundown Naturals, Solgar, Holland & Barrett, Osteo Bi-Flex, MET-Rx, Pure Protein, Body Fortress, Puritan's Pride, and Organic Dr., among others. As a leading global manufacturer, marketer, distributor, and retailer of vitamins, nutritional supplements, sports & active nutrition, and ethical beauty products, The Nature's Bounty Co. is committed to supporting wellness in all its forms.

Holland & Barrett International is one of the world's leading health and wellness retailers and the largest in Europe, supplying its customers with a wide range of vitamins, minerals, health supplements, specialist foods, and natural beauty products. With over 145 years of experience in the industry, the Holland & Barrett name is a familiar sight in almost every major city and town across the UK, and it is becoming increasingly more visible further afield in markets as diverse as the Netherlands and Malta to the UAE, China, and India. 

The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ:CG) is a global alternative asset manager with $162 billion of assets under management across 287 investment vehicles as of March 31, 2017. The Carlyle Group's purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, many of which are public pensions. The Carlyle Group invests across four segments—corporate private equity, real assets, global market strategies, and investment solutions—in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America. The Carlyle Group has expertise in various industries, including aerospace, defense & government services, consumer & retail, energy, financial services, healthcare, industrial, real estate, technology & business services, telecommunications & media, and transportation. The Carlyle Group employs more than 1,550 people in 31 offices across six continents.

LetterOne was founded in 2013 and is an international investment business headquartered in Luxembourg. LetterOne's strategy is to build a new portfolio of successful companies that are leaders in their respective fields and sectors. LetterOne makes long-term investments of its own capital in companies in which its sector experience and strategic and geographic expertise will improve performance and foster growth. It has recruited world-class CEOs, sector investment teams, and advisory boards to invest at scale. It buys and builds assets that it can develop over time as platforms of long-term, sustainable growth. It invests through L1 Energy, L1 Technology, L1 Health, and L1 Retail.