Samsonite Group S.A. agreed to acquire an 85% stake in BÉIS, the six-year-old travel and lifestyle brand co-founded by actress Shay Mitchell, in a deal that values the company at roughly $210 million on a cash-free, debt-free basis, according to the companies’ joint announcement. Samsonite will pay $178.5 million in cash, drawn from cash on hand and its revolving credit facility.
Beach House Group, BÉIS’s majority owner, is selling its entire 70% holding. Mitchell is rolling over about half of her existing equity and will retain a 15% stake once the deal closes, expected in the fourth quarter pending regulatory approval.
BÉIS built its business outside the traditional luggage aisle. Lifestyle bags, rather than hard-shell suitcases, account for roughly half of its sales, and the brand has amassed 1.4 million Instagram followers and 619,000 TikTok followers. BÉIS generated close to $210 million in net sales last year and already operates profitably, Pulse2 reported, a detail that helps explain why Samsonite priced the deal near the brand’s full-year revenue.
Samsonite Chief Executive Kyle Gendreau said the purchase “aligns closely with our key growth priorities: elevating awareness of consumer-centric brands, strengthening our digital capabilities.” BÉIS Chief Executive Adeela Hussain Johnson, who will keep running the brand as a standalone unit, said Samsonite’s “global scale, operational expertise and international platform will help us accelerate that growth and reach even more consumers.” Mitchell, who stays on as founder and head of creative and design, put it more simply: joining Samsonite gives the brand “the chance to dream even bigger.”
BofA Securities and Ropes & Gray LLP advised Samsonite on financial and legal matters. Raymond James and Granderson Des Rochers LLP represented BÉIS, while Mitchell retained her own counsel, Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks. Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher is serving as Samsonite’s outside communications advisor on the transaction, a role that put its contact information at the bottom of the release Samsonite distributed through PR Newswire.
Joele Frank describes its own practice as advising public and private companies on mergers and acquisitions, shareholder activism defense and investor relations, according to the firm’s own description of its work. That description fits squarely with its assignment here: it fielded media questions on a consumer-brand purchase rather than the activist fights or bankruptcy proceedings the firm more often handles. Samsonite’s deal team left the financial disclosures to BofA and the legal drafting to Ropes & Gray, but it is Joele Frank’s number that reporters calling about the transaction were told to use.
Samsonite has built a pattern of adding founder-led labels to diversify beyond suitcases, and the BÉIS purchase follows that logic by bringing in an audience the parent company does not reach as easily on its own. Whether that following stays engaged under new ownership, and whether Mitchell’s continued creative role keeps the brand’s tone intact, will likely shape how the deal is judged once it closes in the fourth quarter.
Between BofA, Ropes & Gray, Raymond James, Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks and Joele Frank, the transaction drew a full bench of advisers for a deal of relatively modest size. Joele Frank’s continued presence as Samsonite’s outside communications adviser suggests more disclosures are likely before the purchase reaches its expected close later this year.
