Nicolas

Private equity investor, long time M&A specialist.

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

📰On this day in Consumer & Retail Sector in 1974, at 8:01 a.m. in a Troy, Ohio supermarket, a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum (67¢) became the first retail item ever scanned with a UPC barcode. Modern retail data was born with a 10-pack of gum.

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

@emollick That interactive map is super cool and impressive (granted, I like maps)

[Ethan Mollick @emollick]

I've had access to Fable for a bit. A genuine jump in capability, I could feed it a 15 page design document for a project and it would work for 9+ hours and deliver terrific results.

But working with it is weird & weirder is coming

Lots of examples: https://t.co/HptkYunBzr

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

📰 On this day in 1902, the first Horn & Hardart Automat opened at 818 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia: a coin-operated "waiterless restaurant" where a nickel in the slot bought a hot meal, pioneering American fast food and vending machines. https://t.co/FpmOp2rRi2

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

Full article here: https://t.co/AkeHwDRH3q

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

Former SPAC Waldencast ($WALD) just sold Obagi Medical to Bridgepoint for $460m — barely half the $858m it paid four years ago. The founders are going with it. Here's the full wreckage (and one decent outcome). 🧵

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

The Milk Makeup stub is actually the interesting story now for $WALD. Clean balance sheet, founder back in charge, one focused brand, and potentially interesting bite-sized acquisition for a strategic if the team can clean up the overhead and execute from here on out.

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

Likely Zodiac would need to materially up both price and financing to clear the "superior proposal" bar.

Fun fact: they had offered $1.25 back in January. Do they have the capital and conviction to get back there?

More details:
https://t.co/iWA62VlnBL

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

The itty-bitty takeover battle for big & tall retailer Destination XL ($DXLG): A perennial underperformer - peaks of $8 to troughs under $1 for 20 years, sales stuck at $400-500m since 2008, despite the ever-widening waistband of the American consumer.
Dec 1 market cap: $50m.

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

$DXLG Board verdict on May 26: inadequate, highly conditional, subject to financing. Only $10m committed equity and only an indicative debt term sheet.

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

Kontoor Brands $KTB swaps its Lee jeans for Helly Hansen gear. KTB announced the sale of its Lee business to Authentic Brands for $750m plus an earnout of up to $250m. This follows the acquisition of Helly Hansen in 2025 for $900m. A good trade? Details: https://t.co/aOdFZUa6CW

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

$PBH continues on its acquisition spree with the purchase of Australian therapeutic skincare company #LaCorium Health for $150m, paying an implied 3.8x LTM Revenue and 12.5x LTM EBITDA "after synergies". This is after its $1b acquisition of Breath Right in March.

[Nicolas @NicolasMurat]

Pssst, @Paul_Hastings, there's a mistake / typo in your @UniFirst_Corp merger proxy statement with @CintasCorp . Hint: Background of the Merger section.
https://t.co/0sXCnPfXc4