Americana

Manchester based Americana designs, produces, distributes and retails branded casual wear and accessories under the Bench label.

The business was established in 1998 and underwent a £20m buyout in 2003. Since then the business has developed strong market positions within the UK clothing market and is now sold across Europe, the US, Canada and Japan. 

In December 2006 (early on in the auction process) HgCapital asked Skillcapital to start work on searching for a new CEO.

We knew that the management team of the business had demonstrated excellent wholesale performance in the UK and were now focused on internationalising the brand, so our remit was to look for someone who could work with an already successful team; had grown apparel brands across a range of international markets; perhaps someone who already had experience of apparel for 15-25 year olds and ultimately maybe a CEO who had private equity experience. 

First we identified the universe of international branded apparel wholesalers, then international retailers (or UK retailers who had undertaken significant overseas expansion) and finally relevant private equity investments that had exited.

Having identified the business and then the management teams that had successfully created significant value in these deals, it became clear few individuals had the relevant private equity experience in addition to the required international branded roll out experience in fashion based apparel.

One individual was Peter McGuigan, CEO at Umbro.  Umbro had been previously backed by the private equity fund Doughty Hanson and as CEO, Peter had increased EBITA by 180% as well as significant increases in margin and revenue alongside.

Umbro had exited via an IPO in 2004 and whilst Peter had been required to remain with the business for a period of time post exit, that was coming to a close.  He had joined Umbro from Pentland, where he had been responsible for the development of sporting goods brands such as Ellesse and Speedo and was previously an MD of Reebok UK and President of Reebok’s non-UK businesses. 

In Peter we had found someone who could demonstrate a value creation story in a private equity backed business and who had a background in growing several different apparel brands internationally. Peter also happened to live in Manchester.

In March 2007 HgCapital completed the £190m acquisition of Americana and Peter joined the business as CEO that July.

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