Joann Inc., the fabric and craft store, filed for an initial public offering a decade after being taken private by buyout firm Leonard Green & Partners. The Hudson, Ohio-based company in its filing Wednesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission listed the size of the offering as $100 million, a placeholder that will likely change.
Private equity firm Leonard Green acquired the company, then Jo-Ann Stores Inc., in a $1.6 billion deal in 2010. The retailer, dating back to a Cleveland storefront in 1943, has prospered through the coronavirus pandemic, adding 8 million new customers to its marketing database in the past year, according to its filing.
“These new customers tend to be younger and more affluent than existing customers in our database, and are large consumers of our rapidly growing sewing and craft technology categories which include machines and related supplies,” Joann said in the filing.
The company paid down more than $433 million in debt in 2020, reducing its total debt to about $930 million as of Oct. 31, according to its filing.
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