Investment bank Ohana & Co. is the latest company to put down Los Angeles roots. On Monday, managing partners and siblings Karine and Ariel Ohana, along with entrepreneur, conservationist and philanthropist Susan Cohn Rockefeller held their annual Success for Progress dinner in L.A. to celebrate Earth Day along with the official opening of Ohana & Co.’s Beverly Hills office, at Fig & Olive restaurant in West Hollywood. The event drew Californian beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands including The Real Real, P.J. Salvage, Hale Bob, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Radical Skincare, Ilia Beauty and Coola sunscreen, which share a similar environmental ethos.
Ohana, which opened its West Coast branch after Paris and New York, has been active in several high-profile beauty and lifestyle mergers and acquisition deals, including the recent acquisition of Thakoon by Silas Chou; Procter & Gamble Co.’s unloading of Rochas to Interparfums, and cosmetics company Mallygirl LLC to Beauty Visions LLC, an affiliate of TPR Holdings.
“The beauty and fashion space is increasingly conscious of its environmental impact, which Susan [Rockefeller] believes is also key to the future of the industries, and many of these companies are based on the West Coast,” noted Karine Ohana. “We decided it was time to bring our relationships with major European [conglomerates] closer to those types of companies to create a face-to-face dialog.” Her brother Ariel will split his time between Paris and Los Angeles while she will continue to operate mainly in Paris. The New York-based Cohn Rockefeller, through her platform Protect What Is Precious, advises brands looking to launch or adapt businesses to greener practices.