10 Popular Brands That Got Acquired by Private Equity in 2026

You probably already noticed something feels different about that restaurant, or your favorite hair salon, or the dog food subscription that used to arrive with a personal note. You're not imagining it.

2026 is shaping up to be one of the biggest years for private equity in consumer-brand history. The brands getting swept up aren't no-name companies. They're the ones with cult followings, loyal email lists, and decades of customer trust. The kind of businesses real people built, and real people supported, and now they're getting flipped through investor portfolios like baseball cards. 2027.

The PE playbook has been the same for thirty years. Buy a healthy business. Load it with debt. Cut costs. Squeeze suppliers. Raise prices. Reduce quality. Sell in four to seven years to the next firm. Sometimes the brand survives. Often it doesn't.

Toys R Us, Red Lobster, Joann Fabrics, Payless ShoeSource, RadioShack... all owned by private equity when they collapsed. According to research from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, PE accounts for roughly 6.5% of the U.S. economy but was responsible for around 56% of the largest U.S. bankruptcies in 2024.

Here are ten brands acquired in 2026 by private equity firms, PE-backed roll-ups, or conglomerates exiting from PE ownership. Each one has a MoneyMouth Approved switch aka an independent or values-aligned alternative you can move your spending to today.

1. Denny's

The 72-year-old American diner officially became a private-equity company on January 16, 2026. A consortium led by TriArtisan Capital Advisors, alongside Treville Capital and franchisee group Yadav Enterprises, took Denny's private in a $620 million deal. If TriArtisan's name sounds familiar, it should. The firm previously took TGI Fridays private in 2014 through a $900 million leveraged buyout, and Hooters in 2019. TGI Fridays filed for bankruptcy in 2024. Hooters filed in 2025. To finance the Denny's deal, the chain took on $335 million in new debt and sold off $145.5 million of its own real estate in a sale-leaseback — the same maneuver that ultimately broke Red Lobster.

The switch: Independent diners and family-owned breakfast spots in your area. Find a replacement https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

2. Bob Evans Restaurants

That same week, Bob Evans got passed from one private equity firm to another. On February 5, 2026, 4x4 Capital — which already owns FitCrunch protein bars and Yelloh (formerly Schwan's Home Delivery) — acquired the 400-unit family dining chain from Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate had owned Bob Evans Restaurants since 2017, when it bought the chain for $565 million. The same private equity firm is best known among industry analysts as the previous owner of Red Lobster, which sold off its real estate in a sale-leaseback that helped saddle the chain with rent it couldn't sustain. Bob Evans is now a portfolio holding inside another portfolio. The brand the late namesake founder built in 1948 around his Ohio sausage business is, in 2026, a financial instrument. The switch: Local breakfast counters, independent farm-to-table cafés, and worker-owned diners. Search at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

3. Drybar

On January 22, 2026, the cult blowout chain — together with Elements Massage, Amazing Lash Studio, Fitness Together, and Radiant Waxing — was acquired by Los Angeles–based private equity firm Transom Capital Group. The seller? KSL Capital Partners, another private equity firm that had owned the parent company WellBiz Brands since 2015. That's eleven straight years of PE ownership followed by another round of it. More than 700 locations across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Middle East are now operating under their second consecutive private-equity owner. When franchise systems get sold between PE firms, the playbook usually involves raising royalties and marketing fees charged to franchisees — costs that get passed straight to the people booking blowouts and waxes.

**The switch: **Independent salons, women-owned and Black-owned beauty businesses, and local wellness studios. Filter by ownership type at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

4. Jiffy Lube

In March 2026, Shell offloaded the 45-year-old quick-lube franchisor for approximately $1.3 billion to Monomoy Capital Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in corporate carve-outs. Jiffy Lube serves roughly 19 million customers a year across more than 2,000 North American service centers. That makes it one of the largest single consumer-facing service brands to move from a corporate parent into pure PE hands this year. Monomoy has said it plans to "expand the franchise network and broaden automotive service offerings beyond oil changes." Translation worth watching: the most reliable way for PE firms to boost margins in franchise systems is by raising the royalties and fees charged to local franchise owners — pressure that almost always shows up at the register.

The switch: Locally owned independent auto shops and mechanics. Look up by zip at moneymouth.club/find-a-switch.

5. Olaplex

On March 26, 2026, Olaplex — the science-led haircare brand that built a genuine cult following among colorists and curly-hair influencers — agreed to be acquired by German conglomerate Henkel for approximately $1.4 billion. The seller: Advent International, a private equity firm that's been Olaplex's majority shareholder for years. Advent now exits its investment entirely. Olaplex moves into a global hair-care portfolio that already includes Joico, Kenra, and Schwarzkopf. Worth knowing: Olaplex went public in 2021 at a valuation of over $13 billion. It's being sold five years later at roughly 90% below that figure. The PE-fueled growth story didn't pay off for retail shareholders. It paid off for the private equity firm at the top of the stack.

The switch: Independent and small-batch haircare brands, Black-owned haircare lines, and chemist-founded indie labels. Search at moneymouth.club/find-a-switch.

6. Ollie

On February 6, 2026, the fresh, human-grade dog food brand was acquired by Spanish conglomerate Agrolimen in a deal that sources told Reuters valued the company at over $600 million. Ollie launched in 2016 with backing from Primary Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Quadrille Capital, ECP Growth, and Lerer Hippeau. The venture-backed exit pattern is exactly the one private equity playbooks count on: VCs fund a category-defining DTC brand, build it to scale, then sell it into a conglomerate that already owns the competition. Agrolimen owns Nature's Variety (Instinct brand) in the U.S. and Affinity Petcare across Europe. Ollie now sits inside the same multinational that controls a major portion of the premium pet-food shelf — even though customers think they're still buying from an indie subscription startup.

The switch: Smaller independent pet-food brands, co-ops, and direct-from-farm pet nutrition companies. Find your new fav in our directory at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

7. Coterie

The premium baby-care brand that hundreds of thousands of parents pay $95 a month to subscribe to was sold to Mammoth Brands (the company behind Harry's, Flamingo, Lume, and Mando) at a valuation reported north of $1 billion. The deal was announced in October 2025 and closed by year-end, with most of the press cycle landing in early 2026. The selling shareholder was American Pacific Group, a private equity firm that had been Coterie's largest investor. Coterie had built a category-disrupting business almost entirely direct-to-consumer, selling more than 700 million diapers since 2019 and pulling in over $200 million in net revenue in its last full year. Parents picked Coterie precisely because it wasn't Pampers or Huggies. Now it's a portfolio brand inside a CPG conglomerate that's explicitly chasing the same omnichannel mass-retail playbook Harry's pursued.

The switch: Smaller independent diaper brands, eco-certified household goods, and women-owned baby-care companies. Browse at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

8. TRUBAR

The plant-based protein bar brand was acquired in a deal announced in late 2025 and closing in Q1 2026 by Turkish snacking giant ETi Gıda for approximately C$201 million (roughly $143 million USD), at a 64% premium to its prior closing share price. TRUBAR built a passionate following among fitness consumers and clean-label snackers. Its appeal was the small-brand story: a focused product, transparent ingredient list, and a founder narrative customers could actually follow. The acquirer, ETi Gıda, is one of the largest packaged-food manufacturers in Turkey and a major consumer-goods exporter. The story is becoming so common it has a name in M&A circles: "better-for-you" brands getting picked off one by one before they ever reach the scale to compete independently. Healthier than the alternative? Sure. Independent? Not anymore.

The switch: Locally made protein bars, co-op snack brands, and small independent better-for-you companies. Find the best alternatives at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

9. TreeHouse Foods

In Q1 2026, European investment firm Investindustrial completed its $2.9 billion all-cash take-private acquisition of TreeHouse Foods. Most consumers have never heard of TreeHouse, but you've eaten its products. The company is one of North America's largest private-label manufacturers — meaning the store-brand cereal, pickles, salad dressings, broths, cookies, and crackers you grab thinking you're saving money? A meaningful share of them are made by this single company, which now sits inside a private equity portfolio. This matters because private-label products are sold to consumers as the affordable, no-nonsense alternative to "Big Food." In reality, much of "Big Food's" private-label competition is now owned by private equity firms running the same playbook as the brands they're supposedly competing with.

The switch: Genuinely independent grocery brands, regional co-ops, and locally owned bakeries and food makers. Browse independent food businesses at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

10. Rad Power Bikes

On March 5, 2026, the Seattle-based electric bike company that once raised nearly $330 million in venture capital and was valued at $1.65 billion was sold for $13.2 million. Rad Power had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2025. The buyer was Life Electric Vehicles Holdings, a Florida-based company that's explicitly building a roll-up of distressed e-bike brands. Life EV had previously acquired Harley-Davidson's Serial 1 brand in 2023. Within weeks of closing the Rad Power deal, its CEO told Bicycle Retailer that another struggling e-bike acquisition is already in motion. A roll-up isn't quite a private equity acquisition in the traditional sense — but it's the same financial logic: consolidate, cut costs, and run multiple wounded brands through a single shared back-office to extract whatever margin remains. Rad's most loyal customers — many of whom have batteries from the company's pre-bankruptcy recall — are being told some warranties will be honored and some won't, "in accordance with the terms of the asset purchase agreement."

The switch: Worker-owned and locally manufactured e-bike brands, and bike shops with house-built builds. Find an independent alternative at https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

What's Actually Happening

If you read all ten of these together, a pattern shows up. It's not that private equity is "buying everything." It's more specific than that.

PE firms target brands that have already done the hard work — built a community, earned trust, captured a niche, and reached profitability. The job of the PE firm isn't to build. It's to extract. Sometimes they extract gracefully and the brand survives in recognizable form. Sometimes they extract aggressively and the brand collapses, leaving behind nothing but the logo on a clearance rack.

When you keep buying from a brand that's been acquired, your dollars don't reward the founders or the team that earned your trust. They flow up the stack to a fund that has, on paper, a 4-to-7-year window to deliver a return to its limited partners. Your purchase becomes one tiny data point in a financial model written in a Manhattan office. You can't stop the dealmaking. But you can stop funding it.

Every brand on this list has several independent alternatives. Some are women-owned, Black-owned, worker-owned, or B-Corp certified. Most are just locally rooted businesses run by people who actually answer their own email.

Find your switches today:

https://moneymouth.club/find-a-switch

The revolution will be powered by you.

Sources: Restaurant Business, Reuters, CNBC, CBS News, Bloomberg, Food Dive, Retail Dive, Restaurant Dive, Modern Retail, Pet Food Industry, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Inc., Bicycle Retailer, The Globe and Mail, Henkel press release, PRNewswire, Olaplex SEC filings, Mammoth Brands press release, Transom Capital press release, Life EV press release, PE Stakeholder Project. All figures and dates verified as of May 2026.