The successor to Denver’s Miller Stockman stores has been purchased by a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that plans to help the company expand in the work-wear business.
Sage Capital Partners is set to announce this week that it has acquired controlling interest in Cheyenne-based Corral West Ranchwear. The company operates 95 Western clothing stores, including 15 in Colorado.
Corral West is best known in Colorado as the company that bought out the retail business of Denver’s storied Miller Stockman Co. in 1999 so Miller could concentrate on clothing manufacturing.
The company employs 1,000 people. Most work part time.
Sage Capital Partners declined to say how much it paid for the company. It would only say that it has purchased more than 60 percent of the Corral West from the company’s management team.
“By virtue of fact that they bought Miller Stockman, they are the biggest player in the country,” said Dan Gardenswartz, managing director of Sage Capital Partners.
Corral West had revenues near $100 million last year and is experiencing double-digit sales growth, Gardenswartz said.
Corral West’s management team will maintain an ownership interest in the company, and there will not be any changes in the company’s leadership.
“They’ve contributed some capital that will allow us to do some very aggressive growth as we see fit,” said Corral West chief executive Leslie Ball.
In addition to expanding its Corral West line of stores, the company has embarked on a plan to launch a chain of stores specializing in work clothes. The company opened its first Work Wear Depot in Milwaukee in October and plans to open two or three more stores in the Midwest next year.
“There is not one national company that dominates this area in the United States,” Gardenswartz said. “There’s a compelling case for building a multihundred store chain of work-wear stores.”
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
