Over the course of 32 years, local gift store chain Patina has survived copycats, fires, riots, a pandemic, and Amazon. And now, founders Rick Haase and Christine Ward have ensured their popular Twin Cities shops will endure beyond their retirement.
The husband and wife business partners have sold their eight-store boutique chain to Teamshares, an employee ownership platform that buys small businesses from retiring owners and progressively grants ownership to employees with the goal of 80% within 20 years. Launched in 2019, Teamshares has acquired 100 businesses around the country, including several in Minnesota, like PlanForce, a Minneapolis commercial architecture firm, and Gardner Construction in Bloomington.
“Our goal is to be a permanent minority stakeholder in the companies we acquire. We’re not looking for a quick exit,” said Madhuri Kommareddi, chief operating officer for Teamshares, a remote-first company whose president, Alex Eu, lives in Minnesota.
Patina, a fixture in neighborhoods from South Minneapolis to Woodbury, is exactly the sort of business that fits the Teamshares model: longstanding, consistently profitable, with community roots and a seasoned team capable of carrying on without its founders, said Kommareddi. “They have a strong team, stability, and real pride in the community. For us, that’s an incredibly attractive opportunity.” Teamshares’ “minimum threshold” for acquisition is $400,000 in annual “discretionary earnings,” which Kommareddi described as the dollars owners take out of the business each year. Specific terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Haase and Ward grew Patina by reinvesting in the business and had no outside investors…