Local Crafts Group acquires Jimmy Beans Wool

A conversation that started out as mutual appreciation between two female CEOs working in the same space eventually led to a mid-April acquisition of Reno-based Jimmy Beans Wool by Local Crafts Group of Vancouver, Wash.

Veronica Collins, chief executive officer of Local Crafts Group, told NNBW that she met Jimmy Beans Wool Chief Executive Officer Laura Zander about 18 months ago and was instantly impressed by the business and Zander’s business acumen.

“From the moment we met, I really enjoyed talking to her, working with her, and having a thought partner in the business,” Collins said. “It started out sharing stories, learning, and talking about things in the (crafting) world.

“The more I learned about her business, and the more I learned about her, I realized it was a unique opportunity to acquire a business that was really in its strength – Jimmy Beans Wool is incredibly effective,” Collins said. “One day I just asked her, ‘What if we weren’t separate? What if we were working together as one?’ That changed the tone of conversations going forward.”

For Zander, the acquisition is a chance to relinquish several of the many hats she wore running Jimmy Beans Wool – she’s the company’s CEO, CFO and COO. She joins Local Crafts Group as chief brand officer and will focus on extending the reach of key brands such as della Q, Madelintosh, Dream in Color and Jamieson’s of Shetland – brands that were an acquisition target for Local Crafts Group, Collins said.

“When I think about how to expand Local Crafts in an organic fashion, I think about the strategy of great quality products that customers love, with a customer-oriented brand around them,” Collins said. “Selling great products and taking care of your customers is the foundation of how Laura had built and grown Jimmy Beans.”

“Scale brings a lot of efficiency for both of our businesses and enables us to continue building the kind of business that we both have envisioned – one that invests in the overall crafting community, local yarn and quilting stores, and one that continues to develop and make great products for our customers,” she added. “The Jimmy Beans marketplace has served its customers in really amazing ways, and Laura is now able to take those brands and extend them into the market.”

The acquisition extends the breadth of products offered by Local Crafts Group, as well as its manufacturing capabilities — Jimmy Beans Wool operates a dye house in Fort Worth. Local Crafts, meanwhile, designs, manufactures and distributes sewing, quilting, knitting and crocheting supplies to a global network of independent distributors and retailers.

“From a capabilities standpoint, there were a lot of similarities, which is one of the reasons why we felt confident about the acquisition because we knew we could help them steward the business effectively,” Collins said.

Courtesy Jimmy Beans Wool
Local Crafts Group of Vancouver, Wash., has acquired Jimmy Beans Wool.

Local Crafts Group operates under the umbrella of Blue Point Capital Partners, a private equity firm with offices in Seattle, Cleveland, and Charlotte, N.C. The financial strength of Blue Point Capital Partners will allow Zander to better scale Jimmy Beans’ brands, Collins told NNBW.

“My goal was to unlock her and her company’s potential to focus on growth and product development by allowing them to utilize all the operational systems we have put in place in the 20 to 40 years our brands have been in place,” Collins said. “This (acquisition) allows her to lean on our support systems, our warehouse and distribution systems, and HR and finance teams. It allows her to focus on what she is truly magical at, which is building brands, delighting customers, and being an expert on yarn, knitting and crocheting.”

Zander, meanwhile, said an acquisition had long been on her radar as a vehicle to help grow the family-owned business, but there was never the right fit. Zander and her husband, Doug, had spoken with many different private equity and individual investors over the years, but they were never interested in diluting their equity stake in favor of increased liquidity.

“It was always all or nothing – that’s the best thing for the business,” Laura Zander said.

While Doug Zander retired, Laura said she remains all-in to growing the brands under the Jimmy Beans Wool umbrella.

“I have come to accept that (retiring) is not in my DNA,” she said. “I need to build things. I want to be part of a team and have people around me I can learn and grow from, and now I have the resources and tools to do what I have always wanted to do with this business that I have not been able to do.

“I’m happiest building brands and creating emotional connections,” she added. “I’m so excited to be able to get back to my roots, which is marketing, creating thinking and innovation, and brand building.

Jimmy Beans Wool was founded in Truckee in 2002 in a small 500-square foot retail location that sold espresso drinks and yarn. The company now operates out of a 21,000 square-foot facility in South Meadows, and has a 30,000 square-foot yarn dyeing facility in Texas, a sewing team in Vietnam, and a knitting needle manufacturing collaboration in India.