NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

TSC Group, LLC to Acquire Barjan, LLC

For over 30 years TSC Group, LLC and its affiliated companies, ("TSC" ), have provided products and services to America's top national and regional retailers. TSC's unique approach to improving sell through and overall profitability for its retail partners is the combination of a best in class national in-store field service support organization, a business development strategy focusing on the introduction of early lifecycle products, and compelling merchandising, presentation standards and in-store promotional materials. To top it off, TSC's patented software, (Kogenysis), greatly simplifies the aggregation of categories and products delivered by TSC as a single provider.

TSC's acquisition of Barjan additionally includes the recent purchase of ETW, (Eastern Tool Warehouse), a leading national distributor of specialty tools for the automotive and heavy duty truck industries. "TSC now provides comprehensive retail services through a very unique strategic business model. Retailers will now have a strong advantage with TSC's supply chain expertise, product selection and in-store execution for optimizing category success and profitability," said John J. Wiesehan, Jr, President and CEO. "We are extremely excited to welcome the employees and operations of Barjan and ETW to the TSC family of companies. The combination of TSC's unmatched product portfolio and commitment to customer service and Barjan's best-in-class distribution capabilities will allow TSC to provide its customers with the strongest value proposition in the industry."

The transaction completes TSC's strategy of becoming the only full service distributor to the travel center industry with a nationwide field merchandising organization providing critical in-store merchandising and support. "We believe the synergies of this transaction will deliver substantial future growth under the leadership of TSC's highly experienced senior team," added John Wiesehan.

Christopher Hannum, a partner with Culp, Elliott & Carpenter represented TSC in the acquisition. Richard J. Battle and Scott A. Henderson of Elliott Davis provided TSC with tax and professional advice.

About TSC Group

TSC is a leader in the sales, marketing, and distribution of consumer brand products to America's top retailers. TSC has earned the respect and confidence of today's national retailers by successfully introducing innovative, profit-driven products and by facilitating and streamlining the factory-to-shelf process. TSC's product experience includes not only general merchandise products, but also fresh, high growth categories such as prepaid products, financial services, and subscriber services. TSC also provides additional retail solutions services, including category management, proprietary billing and invoicing technology, in-store service and merchandising, and pricing and promotional execution. TSC is headquartered in Charlotte, NC with offices in Atlanta, Knoxville, Miami, Richmond, Denver and Dallas/Ft. Worth. For additional information on TSC, please visit www.tscgrp.com or call 1.800.647.1718.

About Barjan

With a centralized distribution center in Rock Island, Illinois, Barjan is a major distributor of general merchandise to truck stops and travel centers across America. The Company sources and distributes over 8,000 individual products, including automotive and truck tools, automotive accessories, chemicals and additives, consumer electronics, tools, books, videos, and music. In addition to sourced products, Barjan is the owner of many leading aftermarket brands servicing the professional truck driver including: Astatic, Wilson and Francis. Barjan is the principal supplier to both leading national travel center chains and thousands of regional and local travel centers across North America. For additional information on Barjan, please visit www.barjan.com.

About Monomoy Capital Partners, L.P.

With over $640 million in assets under management, Monomoy Capital Partners is a family of private equity funds that makes controlling investments in middle market companies. The Fund has completed 29 transactions in the smaller end of the middle market over the past four years and currently owns 11 businesses that collectively employ more than 6,000 people. Monomoy implements customized business improvement programs in all portfolio companies that reduce operating expenses, increase profitability and encourage profitable growth. For additional information on Monomoy and its portfolio companies, please visit www.mcpfunds.com.

TSC Group, LLC
Jay Galletly, 704-943-5052
jgalletly@tsc-grp.com