Blackstone Is Holding the Bag. Sara Blakely Is Holding the Cash.
In October 2021, Sara Blakely sold majority control of a business she'd bootstrapped for 21 years to Blackstone at $1.2B. This summer, that equity went to zero, quietly, in an out-of-court restructuring, while Skims walked off with the category. She's not alone on the right side of the turn this week. The Goodles founders, including the former president of Annie's, who'd run this exact play before, took seven share points off Kraft and sold to Barilla. Atorie raised to walk customers straight to the luxury factories, just as the houses' five-year pricing binge runs out of road. Meanwhile Headspace, valued at $3B the same month as the Spanx deal, is being sold for $200–300M as capital floods into a completely different wellness cohort. And Jordan Nathan at Caraway explains the operating discipline that keeps a brand from ever being the one holding the bag.
