Tully & Holland ("T&H")is pleased to announce its role as exclusive financial advisor to Gallon Jug Agroindustry, Ltd. in its sale of selected assets to The Forestland Group, LLC.  These assets, including 104,000 acres of land located in Central America, were sold to Laguna Seca Land, LLC, a newly formed company of The Forestland Group.

Tully & Holland ("T&H")is pleased to announce its role as exclusive financial advisor to Brady Enterprises, Inc. in its sale to Sequel Holdings, L.P.  Brady Enterprises, Inc., manufactures and packages various powdered food products and food ingredients for leading companies in the consumer packaged goods industry.  The transaction included a co-investment by Gemini Investors.

Dots, a seller of inexpensive private-label women's clothing, shows no fear of a weak economy.  In fact, given the number of stoers it plans to open, the chain appears to like tough times.  Glenwillow, Ohio-based Dots operates about 400 stores across 28 states and says it wants to push that to 1,000 over the next five years.   Not many retailers have such audacity in this recession.  But Dots does because it can rely on private equity and undervalued real estate, and sources point to lots of geographic room for expansion.

Tully & Holland, Inc. is pleased to announce its role as financial advisor to HSN, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSNI) and its subsidiary, Cornerstone Brands, Inc., in the sale of The Territory Ahead to Territory Ahead Apparel, Inc., an affiliate of Blackstreet Capital.

Potpourri Group acquires FetchDog, the high end dog accessories catalog and online merchant, for an undisclosed amount. According to Chris Kampe, Tully & Holland’s Retail Group Managing Director, “This transaction is consistent with the theme about ecommerce dominating multichannel M&A transactions, with both catalog companies and brick-and-mortar retailers acquiring internet retailers in similar product categories.” [For more of Chris’ view on M&A trends in the retail industry, click here for his recent article in Multichannel Merchant.]

Galls, a B2B merchant of public safety equipment, has merged with Quartermaster, a specialty distributor of public safety products. Galls serves about 1 million customers, while Quartermaster has 100,000 active customers. Quartermaster had been owned by Parallel Investment Partners since 2005, “so they have been in the investment for six years,” says Chris Kampe, Tully & Holland’s Retail Group Managing Director. “Typically, the hold period is five years so it was high time for Parallel to exit its investment. Galls was really the quintessential strategic buyer for Quartermaster because of the overlap in products carried and markets served.”

Tully & Holland is pleased to announce its role as financial advisor to Catalog Marketplace, Inc. d/b/a Glendale in the sale of its assets to Capital Resource Partners. BCA Mezzanine Fund provided senior debt and preferred equity capital in support of CRP's acquisition.

Private equity firm, Sycamore Partners submitted an unsolicited offer to purchase the struggling retailer, as Talbots continues to attempt to improve its deteriorating trends. In the article, Tully & Holland Managing Director, Chris Kampe, identifies some of the key challenges facing the troubled retailer: “Talbots continues to suffer from severe same-store sales declines each quarter. Gross margins have been negatively impacted by markdowns and promotions. The result has been further declines in profitability.”

Harry & David is poised to emerge from bankruptcy as its Chapter 11 reorganization plan, including debt conversion and equity financing, has been approved by the courts. Chris Kampe, Managing Director for Tully & Holland's Retail Group discusses the plan with Multichannel Merchant.