Marion Cunningham 
Johnson Products, whose brands include Gentle Treatment and Ultra Sheen, will be run by a husband-and-wife team.
Procter & Gamble Co. has sold Johnson Products Co., its African American hair-care products unit, to a local group of private investors including a husband-and-wife team.
Terms of the deal, announced Tuesday, weren’t disclosed.
Founded in 1954, Johnson Products has sales of more than $23 million a year. The company, whose brands include Gentle Treatment and Ultra Sheen, offers more than 30 hair-care products.
Buyer RCJP Acquisition Inc., a newly formed independent entity, comprises a team of industry veterans as well as Rustic Canyon/Fontis Partners, a private equity fund in Pasadena, and St. Cloud Capital, a private equity firm in Los Angeles.
Johnson Products will be led by Eric Brown and his wife, Renee Cottrell-Brown.
“The acquisition of Johnson Products represents the renewal of a family of products that revolutionized the ethnic hair-care industry starting in the 1950s, and a next stage of growth for a legendary company,” Brown said in a statement.
It makes me extremely happy to know that the brands of Johnson Products Company will be owned by people who understand the black consumer market and care about the brands. I believe Eric Brown and Renee Cottrell-Brown will be successful in reviving the company and I wish them the very best in their endeavors.
George E. Johnson,
Founder
Johnson Products Company
By Andrea Chang
