Liz Buys Prana
Liz Claiborne Inc. is acquiring Skylark Sport Marketing Corp., a Vista, Calif., firm that makes yoga wear and outdoor clothing under the Prana label, for an initial payment of $34.4 million. That includes $32.5 million in cash and the retirement of Skylark’s $1.9 million in debt. In 2005, Skylark’s net sales are expected to total $30 million.
“This acquisition allows us to partner with one of the strongest trending brands in the high-growth active, outdoor and yoga industries and provides further channel diversification into select outdoor stores and specialty retailers through the Prana brand,” said Paul Charron, chairman and chief executive of Liz Claiborne, in a statement.
Skylark was founded in 1993. It is owned by Demian Kloer and husband and wife team Beaver and Pam Theodosakis. Prana’s products are sold in 1,600 specialty retail stores across the country and abroad.
The Sage Group LLC, a Los Angeles investment bank focused on representing brand-driven companies, represented Skylark in the deal.
This is The Sage Group’s third deal with Liz Claiborne. Earlier this year, the investment bank helped sell Los Angeles T-shirt company C&C California, a 3-year-old company, to Liz Claiborne. It also engineered the 2003 sale of Juicy Couture to the $4.6 billion New York firm, which has been growing by acquiring smaller companies.
“Over the last few years, Liz has been looking for tightly distributed attractive brands with well-regarded management teams,” said Brien Rowe, founding partner and managing director of The Sage Group. “They are looking for brands that put them into different distribution channels and have fantastic growth opportunity. Prana has all this.” —Deborah Belgum
