European Wax Center, a franchiser and retailer of waxing services and products owned by private equity firm General Atlantic, was valued at $1.2 billion in its Nasdaq debut.

WHO: Founded in 2004 by siblings David and Joshua Coba, European Wax Center (EWC) is the largest and fastest-growing operator of out-of-home waxing services in the US by number of centers and system-wide sales. Each location also sells 31 pre- and post-treatment products in the skincare, body, and brow categories.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: David Berg, CEO of EWC described the company’s difference as being based on experience. "The first wax is free because we firmly believe that if you experience EWC, you're going to come back and back. Our experience is based on three pillars. One, we have an exceptional training process for our estheticians. Two, we have a proprietary wax called Comfort Wax that is specifically designed to adhere to the hair, not to your skin. Three, it's the overall consistency of the experience. You can go to a EWC across our 808 locations, and those centers all operate consistently and efficiently, whether in Manhattan or Omaha, Nebraska."

"We don't have one market today that is over-densified. We have five corporate centers, and the rest are all franchises, so we're really asset light," David added.

DETAILS:

• European Wax Center listed on the Nasdaq in a $180 million IPO that valued the company at $1.2 billion and will trade under the symbol EWCZ.
• In 2019 and 2020, the business generated $687 million and $469 million of system-wide sales, respectively, across its highly franchised network.
• The business currently operates 808 locations across 44 states. Of these locations, 803 are franchised centers operated by franchisees, and five are corporate owned.
• EWC centers achieve AUVs of $1 million and 4-wall EBITDA margins greater than 20% at maturation.
• EWC is confident that it can nearly quadruple its center count to more than 3,000 within the next 15 years, adding between 60 to 80 locations annually.
• Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Jefferies, Citi, Guggenheim Securities, Truist Securities, and Baird acted as joint bookrunners on the deal.
• In 2018, General Atlantic took a majority stake in European Wax Center.