Wicks Capital Partners announced today that it has sold a majority stake in Gladson, the leading platform for the creation, hosting and syndication of product content, digital assets, and rich content for brands, retailers, and food distributors, to The Jordan Company, a New York-based private investment firm. Wicks, a New York-based private investment firm, will remain an investor.
The announcement comes following the sequential announcements of Gladson's acquisitions of FSENet+, Webcollage, and Nutritionix, all in 2018, to become the industry's leading provider of product information and digital rich media. The combined entities enable the efficient transfer of product information and digital assets from manufacturers to retailers and food service distributors in an end-to-end platform.
"Our clients have already begun to see the added value of integrating our family of companies, providing the most robust product content, data and rich content in the market today," said Paul Salay, CEO of Gladson. "We believe there is a significant opportunity to continue our growth by closing the gap in missing product information, digital assets and nutritional attributes for our clients. TJC's support and resources will allow us to move even faster to provide this much needed value to our clients." Salay and his team will continue to make investments in innovation and acquiring additional capabilities to address the gap that exists in the industry today.
Wicks, which acquired Gladson in January 2017, remains an investor in Gladson, and will continue to serve on the company's board of directors. "Our investment in Gladson and partnership with Paul and the entirety of the management team have been a tremendous success," said Thomas Kearney, Principal at Wicks. "We are equally excited to participate in the next phase of the company's growth with our partners at TJC."
"We have been extremely impressed with Gladson's growth and the management team's strategic vision for the future," said Eion Hu, Senior Partner at TJC. "Consistent with our strategy of partnering with great management teams, we are excited to invest behind Gladson's significant momentum in the market, and to help Gladson continue to solve the important problems faced by their clients today."
Winston & Strawn LLP served as legal advisor to Wicks on the transaction. Lincoln International acted as financial advisor to Wicks.
ABOUT WICKS
Wicks Capital Partners is a private equity firm based in New York City that invests in lower middle market information businesses that create and deliver niche content and services to the business, consumer and education markets. Since its founding in 1989, Wicks has invested over $1 billion of capital in more than 30 platform companies and approximately 100 add-on acquisitions. The firm has applied a consistent investment strategy since its founding, partnering with high-quality, experienced management teams to build businesses organically and through acquisitions. Learn more at www.wicksgroup.com
ABOUT THE JORDAN COMPANY
Founded in 1982, TJC is a New York based private investment firm with original capital commitments in excess of $10 billion and a 36-year track record of investing in and contributing to the growth of many businesses across a wide range of industries. TJC has a long history of partnering with management teams to help them build their businesses through organic growth and acquisitions, and has completed over 120 platform investments and more than 400 add-on acquisitions. The TJC investment team is supported by TJC's Operations Management Group, which was established in 1988 to initiate and support operational improvements in portfolio companies. Headquartered in New York City, TJC also has an office in Chicago. For more information visit: www.thejordancompany.com
ABOUT GLADSON LLC
Gladson LLC is the parent company of Gladson, Webcollage, FSEnet+ and Nutritionix, providing end-to-end content creation, enhancement and syndication for retailers and distributors, and their vendor suppliers. Gladson's digital asset management and product information management solutions provide the most complete content management experience for brands, retailers and food distributors. Featuring the largest network and the most expansive content in the industry, Gladson is the trusted partner for creating, enriching, managing and publishing digital product content. Clients increase in-store and online conversion rates, sales, improve operational efficiencies, provide product transparency, maintain compliance and meet government regulations with Gladson enterprise-ready digital content. For more information, visit www.gladson.com.
