GNC Holdings, LLC (abbreviated GNC; alternatively General Nutrition Centers) is a
retail
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...
company based in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
.
It specializes in health and nutrition related products, including
vitamins
A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrien ...
,
supplements, minerals, herbs,
sports nutrition
Sports nutrition is the study and practice of nutrition and diet with regards to improving anyone's athletic performance. Nutrition is an important part of many sports training regimens, being popular in strength sports (such as weightlifting and ...
,
diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
, and energy products.
In 2020,
Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, a Chinese partially
state-owned
State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownersh ...
pharmaceutical manufacturer, acquired the company.
History
![Pittsburgh-Downtown-2019-06-04-Wood-Street-01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Pittsburgh-Downtown-2019-06-04-Wood-Street-01.jpg)
In 1935,
David Shakarian opened a small
health food store
A health food store (or health food shop) is a type of grocery store that primarily sells health foods, organic foods, local produce, and often nutritional supplements. Health food stores typically offer a wider or more specialized selection of fo ...
, Lackzoom, in downtown
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
. He made
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
35 on his first day and was able to open a second store within six months. A year later, Shakarian suffered from what appeared to be a fatal blow when the
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
flooded into downtown on
St. Patrick's Day. Both of his stores were wiped out. But he opened a new store the next year and later began a mail-order business, shipping health foods and later vitamins and prescription drugs throughout the country. Major expansion began in the 1960s. Shakarian said the physical fitness movement, anxiety about smoking and the growth shopping centers brought success to his business venture.
In the 1960s, the company changed the name of its stores to General Nutrition Centers. Shakarian stepped down as chief executive officer in February 1984 but continued as chairman until his death later that year.
Shakarian took GNC public (listed on the NYSE) in the 1980s. Gary Daum was named chief executive office in February 1984. In May 1985, Jerry Horn took on the role. GNC was taken private and sold to
Thomas H. Lee Partners
Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. is an American private equity firm based in Boston investing in middle market growth companies across financial technology and services, healthcare and technology & business solutions.
History
Founded in 1974 by ...
a PE investment/management fund in the late 1980s. Thomas Lee ran GNC and took it public prior to selling the company to Royal Dutch Numico and
Numico
Nutricia is a Danone brand that specialises in therapeutic food and infant formula, including medical nutrition for babies with specific needs.
The former company, N.V. Nutricia., was established in The Netherlands by brothers Jan and Martinus ...
acquired GNC in 1999; it sold GNC to
Apollo Management
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...
in 2003.
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (french: RĂ©gime de retraite des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario) is an independent organization responsible for administering defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the Canadian pr ...
and
Ares Management
Ares Management Corporation is an American global alternative investment manager operating in the credit, private equity and real estate markets. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with additional of ...
bought GNC in 2007. GNC went public in 2011.
In 1990, the company considered relocating but a public/private effort retained GNC headquarters in
Downtown Pittsburgh
Downtown Pittsburgh, colloquially referred to as the Golden Triangle, and officially the Central Business District, is the urban downtown center of Pittsburgh. It is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River whose ...
.
![GNCMarkhamTownSquare2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/GNCMarkhamTownSquare2.jpg)
In 2018, the Chinese state-owned
Harbin Pharmaceutical Group agreed to acquire an approximately 40% stake in GNC. In September 2020, Senator
Marco Rubio
Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida Hous ...
asked the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS, commonly pronounced "Cifius" ) is an inter-agency committee of the United States government that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companie ...
to examine the proposed acquisition on data protection and national security grounds.
In November 2018, the company announced they would be closing up to 900 stores over 3 years. In July 2019, it was announced that they planned to close up to 1,400 company owned retail locations, primarily those located within shopping malls.
In June 2020, GNC filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...
and indicated plans to close at least 800 stores. Effective on June 30, 2020, the stock was delisted from the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
and shifted to the
OTC Markets Group
OTC Markets Group (previously known as Pink Sheets) is an American financial market providing price and liquidity information for almost 10,000 over-the-counter (OTC) securities. The group has its headquarters in New York City. OTC-traded sec ...
. In September 2020, the bankruptcy court in Delaware approved the sale of GNC for $770 million to Harbin Pharmaceutical Group.
The company emerged from the Chapter 11 process under the new ownership of Harbin Pharmaceutical Group in October 2020. In 2021, GNC revealed that Josh Burris will take over as CEO and Cam Lawrence as CFO.
In 2021, GNC announced a partnership with
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
for a selection of GNC specific products.
Retail and online stores
![GNCPromenade](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/GNCPromenade.JPG)
GNC stores typically stock a wide range of
weight loss
Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health, or physical fitness, refers to a reduction of the total body mass, by a mean loss of fluid, body fat (adipose tissue), or lean mass (namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon, and other conn ...
,
bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's muscles (muscle building) by muscle hypertrophy for aesthetic purposes. It is distinct from similar activities such as powerlifting because it focuses ...
,
nutritional supplements
A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order ...
,
vitamins
A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrien ...
, natural remedies, and health and beauty products, in both its owned brands as well as third-party brands. Its products are also sold on GNC.com and, as of January 2017, on GNC's Amazon Marketplace.
On December 31, 2018, GNC had approximately 8,400 locations, of which approximately 6,200 were in the United States (including approximately 2,200
Rite Aid
Rite Aid Corporation is an American drugstore chain based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by Alex Grass under the name Thrift D Discount Center. The company ranked No. 148 in the Fortune 500 lis ...
licensed
store-within-a-store
A store-within-a-store, also referred to as shop-in-shop, is an agreement in which a retailer rents a part of the retail space to be used by a different company to run another, independent shop.
Origins
In the early days of cellular telephone gr ...
locations), as well as franchise operations in approximately 50 countries.
Of GNC's approximately 4,100 U.S. locations in 2019, 61% were in
strip mall
A strip mall, strip center or strip plaza is a type of shopping center common in North America where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front. ...
s and 28% were in larger malls.
Lawsuits
In 1998, GNC was accused of purposely running its franchisees out of business in order to "retake" the stores into corporate control. An April 30, 2003 article states that the GNC corporate company was sued by numerous franchise owners. The complaint is that the parent company was allowing their corporate owned stores to sell products for less than the franchise stores are allowed to sell them for. The suit also claimed that GNC charged high "reset fees" to franchisees when there is new signage that needs to be changed in the store or an image facelift that must be done by GNC corporate. A similar lawsuit was filed again in an article written on October 20, 2004.
In February 2015,
New York Attorney General
The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government of ...
Eric Schneiderman
Eric Tradd Schneiderman (born December 31, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 65th Attorney General of New York from 2011 until his resignation in May 2018. Schneiderman, a member of the Democratic Party, spent ten year ...
sent
cease and desist
A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...
letters to GNC and other major retailers due to concerning laboratory tests regarding the accuracy of the claimed contents of supplements. GNC shortly afterwards removed some stock from sales while working with the Attorney General. In September 2016, GNC, the New York Office of the Attorney General, and other supplement retailers ultimately came to an agreement and retailers are now accomplishing more robust testing of supplements to ensure accurate labeling.
In October 2015, the Attorney General of Oregon filed a lawsuit against GNC alleging that the company knowingly sold products containing the ingredients
picamilon and
BMPEA, which are banned by the FDA.
On February 2, 2017, GNC threatened to sue the
Fox Broadcasting Company
The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...
for "significant economic and reputational damages, lost opportunities, and consequential damages", after an advertisement for the chain was blocked from airing during
Super Bowl LI
Super Bowl LI was an American football game played at NRG Stadium in Houston, Houston, Texas, on February 5, 2017, to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2016 NFL season, 2016 season. The American Football Confer ...
. Despite repeated approvals by Fox, the network stated that the ad had been vetoed by the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
because of GNC's placement on an
NFLPA
The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director DeM ...
blacklist for selling products that contain substances banned by the NFL. The letter of intent claimed that Fox had not informed them of any such rules when they purchased the ad time, and cited that the purchase induced them to "spend millions of dollars in production costs and in the development of a national, coordinated marketing and rebranding campaign" around the commercial. The NFL itself does not prohibit ads for health stores unless they contain references to specific prohibited products; the GNC ad only contained motivational themes and no references to its products.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Companies traded over-the-counter in the United States
Health food stores
Food retailers of the United States
Retail companies established in 1935
Sports nutrition and bodybuilding supplement companies
Nutritional supplement companies of the United States
Companies based in Pittsburgh
1935 establishments in Pennsylvania
2011 initial public offerings
American companies established in 1935
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020
2020 mergers and acquisitions
American subsidiaries of foreign companies