Indianapolis, Indiana-based HKW has recapitalized Golden Country Oriental Food and its wholly-owned subsidiary Golden Ocean Seafood. The Lee family will remain significant investors in the company, and the management team will remain in place.
Golden Country is a distributor of authentic ethnic foods primarily servicing the grocery, wholesale and foodservice channels. Golden Ocean is a distributor of frozen seafood servicing the same channels. The company carries more than 3,500 dry, refrigerated and frozen SKUs sourced from more than 20 countries.
“On behalf of the entire Lee family, we are fortunate to have found such a great partner in HKW. From our beginnings as a small grocery store in the early 70s servicing customers in Chicago’s Chinatown, we have grown to service customers throughout the Midwest,” said Sidney Lee, CEO.
“This new partnership with John Carsello and his team will enable Golden Country to achieve our ambitious growth objectives and continue to provide our customers with the best product selection at affordable prices.”
HKW is a private equity firm investing in companies with management teams in the U.S. and Canada. HKW targets companies in the technology, health, wellness and business service sectors. Since 1982, HKW has sponsored 67 platform transactions of companies throughout North America and 73 add-on acquisitions.
“The Lee family has built a tremendous business. We are thrilled Sidney Lee, CEO at Golden Country, and his team selected HKW as a partner. Sidney is the CEO HKW looks for: smart, driven, humble and dedicated,” said John Carsello, partner at HKW.
“We have a long track record in specialty distribution and believe we can be a value-added partner for Golden Country as the business enters its next growth phase.”
For more information on HKW, visit hkwinc.com.
