Danny Guez's People's Liberation Goes Public
Danny Guez, son of veteran denim maker Paul Guez, is following in his father’s footsteps and taking his company public through a reverse merger. According to the younger Guez, People’s Liberation, his year-old premium denim and contemporary high-end knit line, and 50 percent of William Rast, the company he co-owns with pop star Justin Timberlake and Trace Ayala, are going public under the deal.
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Versatile Entertainment Inc., the Los Angeles–based company that designs, develops, markets and distributes under the People’s Liberation brand name, and Los Angeles–based Bella Rose LLC, which produces William Rast, signed a letter of intent for a reverse merger with Vero Beach, Fla.–based shell company Century Pacific Financial Corp.
Financial terms of the deal were not released.
The reverse merger is being facilitated by Keating Reverse Merger Fund LLC, owned by Kevin Keating, the majority shareholder in Century Pacific. Kevin Keating is the father of Tim Keating, who is president of Keating Investments LLC, the company that helped Paul Guez with the reverse merger of Antik Denim in April.
Danny Guez, the designer and chief executive of both People’s Liberation and William Rast, said going public would allow People’s Liberation to “grow without interruption.” The company, which bowed in July 2004, has tripled in size over the last year, he said: “Going public now allows us to have more cash to buy more inventory and grow properly.”
Guez has plans to expand People’s Liberation’s knit and denim offerings but, for now, doesn’t foresee adding any new categories. Guez doesn’t rule out using funds from the merger to acquire other companies but says that will most likely have to wait at least a year. —Erin Barajas
