PE Investing Shifts in the Northwest

The Comvest Group has completed its acquisition of a majority stake in Haggen from Don Haggen and Rick Haggen, who have retained a significant minority stake. Haggen operates 30 supermarkets under the Haggen Food & Pharmacy and TOP Food & Drug names. The company was advised financially by Sagent Advisors and legally by Perkins Coie on the deal, while Akerman Senterfitt provided legal counsel to Comvest.

Since the beginning of 2009, PE investors have invested in 97 companies headquartered in the Northwestern U.S. Deal activity in the region was busier last year with 54 completed deals, up from 39 in 2009. With 5 deals completed so far this year, 2011 is off to a slow start compared to last year, but it's still off to a faster start than 2009, which only had 3 completed deals by this point in the year. In 2009, B2B Products and Services and B2C Products and Services were the most popular industries for PE investing in the region. Each accounted for 30.8% of the deal activity. In 2010, B2B clinched the number one spot again, but this time alone, after rising to 35.2%. Its growth in popularity relative to other industries from 2009 to 2010 was topped only by Materials & Resources and Financial Services, which had 7.4 and 6 percentage point increases, respectively.