William Blair acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Worldwise, a portfolio company of Mistral Equity Partners (Mistral), in connection with its sale to Alvarez & Marsal Capital Partners (A&M Capital). Worldwise is a leading North American platform in pet supplies and essentials, offering retailers a branded one-stop-shop solution that serves the majority of their pet supply merchandising needs. Worldwise holds the #1 position in both the core cat and pet travel categories, with a meaningful position in dog toys. The transaction closed on September 23, 2021.
Transaction Highlights
- Deep sector knowledge: Worldwise was attracted to William Blair’s deep expertise in the pet products space, recognizing its industry thought leadership and transaction experience in the space. This marks the firm’s 7th transaction in the pet sector over the last twelve months.
- Trusted guidance: William Blair's deal team worked closely with Worldwise's management team and Mistral throughout every step of the process, including close collaboration in developing marketing materials, performing detailed analyses, coordinating diligence, and managing overall process strategy.
- Process and execution excellence: William Blair's team facilitated A&M Capital's diligence process on an expedited basis, achieving a highly successful outcome for the shareholders.
About the Companies
Worldwise is committed to creating the most innovative, accessible, affordable, and environmentally responsible product solutions for pets and pet-parents everywhere. Its family of award-winning brands - goDog®, Petlinks®, SHERPA®, Hear Doggy!®, SmartyKat®, TrustyPup®, Guaranteed On-Board®, PoochPlanet®, Pawscout™ and more - all stand for the highest in quality, safety and satisfaction, and incorporate environmentally responsible materials and processes whenever possible. Adhering to meet child safety standards and backed by the company’s satisfaction guarantee, its thoughtful, fun and eco-sustainable products promote the bond between pets and pet-parents across diverse categories such as cat toys, catnip, cat bedding, cat scratchers, dog toys, dog bedding, dog and cat travel accessories, app-integrated dog and cat tracking solutions, and more.
A&M Capital Partners (AMCP) is Alvarez & Marsal Capital’s flagship investment strategy focused on middle-market control transactions in North America with total assets under management of approximately $1.8 billion. AMCP partners with founders, corporates, and management teams, providing the capital and strategic assistance that they believe is required to take businesses to the next level of success. AMCP invests in businesses across a wide range of sectors including business services, industrials, manufacturing, food & beverage, healthcare, consumer & retail, government services, financial services and energy services. More broadly, Alvarez & Marsal Capital is a multi-strategy private equity investment firm with over $3 billion in total assets under management across four investment strategies, which maintains a strategic association with Alvarez & Marsal, one of the largest operationally focused advisory firms in the world.
Mistral Equity Partners is a private equity firm specializing in the consumer and retail sector. Other current investments of Mistral include Lovesac, Inc. and Albertson-Safeway.
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