Consumer Products Company Grove Collaborative Closes Merger with Virgin Group SPAC.
MANews-(C)2009-2022
US-based consumer products company Grove Collaborative and special purpose acquisition company Virgin Group Acquisition Corp. II (NYSE: VGII) have closed a merger resulting in Grove becoming a public company, the companies said.
With closing of the transaction, the combined company will continue to operate under the Grove name and will be listed on the NYSE under the new "GROV" ticker symbol.
The combined company will be led by Stuart Landesberg, Co-Founder and chief executive officer of Grove Collaborative.
Grove is a home and personal care brand focused on health and sustainability. It has more than 1.5m active customers through its direct platform and millions of units of products sold at physical retail.
Earlier this year the digitally native company announced its entrance into physical retail at Target stores nationwide and on Target.com, helping more shoppers to adopt a sustainable lifestyle by providing greater access to healthier products to consumers across the country, while quickly becoming the #1 repeat brand in the cleaning category.
In addition to its flagship brand, Grove Co., Grove has built and launched several sustainable brands in the personal care, paper, and beauty categories such as the 100% plastic-free bar format body, hair and deodorant brand, Peach not Plastic.
Grove's customers have avoided over 4.9m pounds of plastic being used by choosing Grove Co. and Peach not Plastic's plastic-free and plastic-reducing products.
Already plastic neutral and CarbonNeutral certified, the company aims to become 100% plastic free by 2025.
Beyond Plastic is Grove's plan to address the plastic crisis and to help the company meet its ambitious goal. Today Grove also has 100% carbon neutral shipping and facilities and is committed to NetZero carbon emissions by 2030.
The business combination includes an implied combined company pro forma enterprise valuation for Grove of USD 1.5bn.
The transaction will provide up to USD 435m in net proceeds to the company, including an USD 87m fully committed common stock PIPE at USD 10.00 per share from an affiliate of the sponsor of VGII and new and existing Grove investors, including Lone Pine Capital, Sculptor Capital Management, General Atlantic and Paul Polman, and USD 348m in proceeds from VGII's trust account net of estimated transaction expenses (and subject to reduction based upon the exercise of any redemption rights by VGII's public shareholders in...
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