Its Kiwi-made products are famous, as are its radio jingle and marketing campaigns. Now the Wet & Forget firm has been sold in a massive, multimillion-dollar commercial deal with a New Zealand private equity firm. Not bad for a company owner who grew up in a state house and left school at 15.
One of New Zealand’s best-known and biggest home-grown consumer brands has been sold in a massive, multimillion-dollar commercial deal.
Wet & Forget – famous for its range of homecare products and its “You got moss? You got mould?” radio and TV advertising jingles and other ads – has been sold by Rod Jenden and his wife Leigh to New Zealand’s largest private equity firm, Direct Capital.
Jenden – who’s spent the best part of five decades perfecting the art of homecare products, including the establishment of the Wet & Forget firm in the mid-1990s – is still processing the sale, for himself, Leigh and their staff.
It is, he says, a strange feeling – “weird” – and he and Leigh are yet to celebrate a life-changing transaction deal.
While no one is revealing any specific numbers, close observers say it’s likely to be a nine-figure deal.
“It’s the people we’re going to miss,” says Jenden.
“They are like a second family to us; I genuinely mean that. For Leigh and I, it’s literally like having a second family – we’ve worked together for so long.”
NZ Herald
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