Kainos Capital, a Dallas-based private equity firm focused on investments in consumer brands, announced Thursday that it has acquired the Slim-Fast trademark and its global product portfolio. Unilever, a global consumer packaged goods (CPG) conglomerate, sold the brand to Kainos, but will retain a minority stake in the business. The financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
“The Slim-Fast sale is the last step in the portfolio reshaping that we had planned for North America,” Kees Kruythoff, president of Unilever North America, said in a release. “This transaction, along with previously announced divestitures, will give us the focus to drive growth behind our core portfolio.”
Unilever owns a variety of global food and beverage brands, including Ben & Jerry’s and Lipton tea, but the company has been restructuring its portfolio to focus on higher-margin, personal-care brands catered to emerging markets, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Slim-Fast sale, along with Unilever’s $2.15 billion sale of pasta sauce brands Ragu and Bertolli in May, seem to follow that line of thinking.
Slim-Fast, one of the most well-known weight management CPG brands, offers a portfolio of snack/protein meal bars, protein shakes and protein shake mixes. The products are sold throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Kainos holds other investments in the health and wellness sector through ownership of Healthy Delights, a supplement company, InterHealth Nutraceuticals, a global provider of nutritional ingredients, and Milk Specialties Global, a protein manufacturer. Chris Tisi, the CEO and founder of Healthy Delights, will become the new CEO of Slim-Fast.
“Chris Tisi and his team have decades of experience in the diet and weight management category and are ready to give Slim-Fast the resources and entrepreneurial focus that will drive the brand to new heights,” Andrew Rosen, managing partner of Kainos Capital, said in another release.