Levine Leichtman Capital Partners and Pacific World Corporation Announce the Acquisition of The W.E. Bassett Company

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Levine Leichtman Capital Partners ("LLCP"), a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, announced today that Pacific World Corporation ("Pacific World" or the "Company"), a portfolio company of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners IV, L.P., has completed the strategic acquisition of The W.E. Bassett Company ("Bassett").  Pacific World is a leading innovator and supplier of proprietary nail and beauty care products to consumers mostly through food, drug, mass and value retail channels worldwide under the Nailene, Fing'rs, Revlon, and Bio Oil brands.  Bassett is the leading supplier of beauty care implements and a rapidly emerging supplier of foot care implements and devices through the same retail sales channels as Pacific World.  Bassett supplies the vast majority of private label products in its categories, owns a portfolio of brands including the category leading TRIM®, Gem® and Pedx® and licenses the Covergirl® brand.

The investments in Pacific World and Bassett were funded from Levine Leichtman Capital Partners IV, L.P., a $1.1 billion private equity fund.  According to Lauren Leichtman, Co-Founder and CEO of LLCP, "The Bassett acquisition is another important strategic addition to Pacific World, giving the Company a highly complementary line-up of branded and private label nail and beauty care products to offer its retail customers throughout the world.  We are delighted to continue our support of Joe Fracassi and the rest of the team at Pacific World, along with Craig Finney and the Bassett management team, as they combine the businesses to continue to build a market leading company."

Joe Fracassi, Pacific World's Chief Executive Officer, commented, "I'm extremely excited to combine the talent and products of Bassett with those of Pacific World.  We look forward to leveraging the combined companies' exceptional product development capabilities, sourcing and distribution relationships and management teams to become a true leader in the nail and beauty care space."

Bingham McCutchen LLP acted as legal counsel to Pacific World and LLCP.  Senior debt financing was provided by BMO Capital Markets, Madison Capital Funding LLC, NXT Capital, LLC (all as Joint-Lead Arrangers) and CIT Corporate Finance (as Documentation Agent).  William Blair & Company served as financial advisor to Bassett and Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP acted as its legal counsel.  

About Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners is a Los Angeles, California-based investment firm that manages approximately $5.0 billion of institutional investment capital through private equity partnerships, distressed debt and leveraged loan funds. LLCP is currently making new investments through Levine Leichtman Capital Partners IV, L.P., Levine Leichtman Capital Partners SBIC Fund, L.P., and Levine Leichtman Capital Partners Deep Value Fund, L.P. Prior investments by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners include CiCi's Pizza, Hackney Ladish, Jon Douglas Real Estate Group, Overhill Farms and Quizno's.  For more information about Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, please visit www.llcp.com.

SOURCE Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

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