Vitamin Shoppe To Be Sold, New Owners Planning Hundreds Of Store Upgrades

Franchise Group is selling one of its retail chains with 650 stores nationwide to private equity firms Kingswood Capital Management and Performance Investment Partners.

The deal for Secaucus, New Jersey-based The Vitamin Shoppe is expected to generate roughly $193.5M for Delaware-based Franchise Group, CoStar reported. The deal is expected to close this quarter.

The Vitamin Shoppe sells vitamins and minerals, nutritional supplements and homeopathic remedies. It stocks roughly 700 brands as well as proprietary brands such as Vitamin Shoppe, True Athlete and BodyTech.

The deal follows Franchise Group’s voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in November. It said that consumer spending habits postpandemic — a slew of spending funded by stimulus checks followed by an inflation-fueled slowdown — had caused it financial problems.

Vitamin Shoppe’s new owners, which are both Los Angeles-based private equity firms, are planning to commit cash for upgrades to the Vitamin Shoppe’s stores, Kingswood partner Michael Niegsch and Performance Investment partner Mark Genender said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

“We plan to make significant investments in the company’s third-party brand relationships, research and development across The Vitamin Shoppe’s owned proprietary brand portfolio, upgrades to the store fleet, and improvements to the omni-channel digital platform to deliver the best possible experience to customers," Niegsch and Genender said.

A number of retailers have filed for bankruptcy in recent months. The parent company of the Quiksilver, Billabong and Volcom brands announced in February that it would close all U.S. stores. A month later, Forever 21 followed suit, with plans to shutter all 359 U.S. locations.

There could soon be more distress. Scores of retailers are already hiking prices in reaction to U.S. tariffs, with companies openly saying that price increases are “unfortunately unavoidable,” Bloomberg reported.

Kingswood Capital and Performance Investment are the latest private equity firms making deals to acquire retailers with plans to invest in improving physical stores and capitalize on their institutional expertise to boost sales.

Walgreens Boots Alliance accepted a $10B buyout deal from Sycamore Partners to go private in March. Also last month, activist private equity firms Brigade Capital Management and Macellum Capital Management reached a $1B deal with Dollar Tree to buy the retailer’s Family Dollar chain.