Opal Concepts Acquires Stylish New Look With Buy of Jose Eber Salons

Anaheim-based Opal Concepts Inc., the world’s second-largest owner of hair salons, said Wednesday that it added celebrity hair stylist Jose Eber Salons Inc. to its holdings, putting the world-famous coiffeur into the same corporate family as everyman haircutter Fantastic Sam’s.

Financial details of the stock-swap transaction weren’t disclosed. Eber Salons will become an Opal subsidiary and Eber a shareholder of Opal.

Opal, which hopes to become an international leader in the beauty industry, said it expects the Jose Eber name to cast a sheen over the entire company, which includes the Carlton Hair International chains.

“I think having Jose and his organization involved with us definitely impacts the whole organization,” said Opal Chief Executive Ted D. Nelson. “If you go into a room of 1,000 people and ask them unaided to name one person to be the icon of our industry, it’s Jose Eber.”

Eber, whose high-profile client roster includes Elizabeth Taylor and Cher, said the deal will allow his Beverly Hills-based company to expand beyond its 10 salons, something he did not have the financial wherewithal to accomplish otherwise.

“Things were tight because I was growing very quickly on my own without any backing,” Eber said Wednesday. “I have extremely big ambitions. I want to be in Asia, in Europe.”

Privately held Opal has 1,660 salons in the U.S., Canada and Japan and annual revenue of more than $100 million. The Eber acquisition is the company’s third in two months. During that time it also picked up Irvine-based Carlton and Hawkins Pro-Cuts. Opal is headed by the 50-year-old Nelson, former chairman of Knudsen Foods Inc., which was the biggest dairy operation in the west before it filed for bankruptcy protection in 1987.

Opal is considering an initial public stock offering. Its investors include New York investment banking company Allen & Co., Citigroup Inc., Warburg Pincus Growth Inc. and Shiseido Co. Ltd., Japan’s largest cosmetics company.

The privately held Eber has annual revenue of $20 million and shops in Costa Mesa, Beverly Hills, Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage. Eber, whose personal haircuts go for $300, will continue to manage his chain, which will operate independently of Opal’s other salon brands.

The fragmented hair salon industry is rapidly consolidating as heavyweights such as Opal and Regis Corp. have expanded by snapping up smaller, often struggling, firms. In 1996, for example, the Minneapolis-based Regis bought San Francisco-based discount haircutter Supercuts Inc. in a $120-million stock swap.

The French-born Eber--known for his long straight hair and ever-present cowboy hat--became interested in styling hair when he was 13. By 18, was a professional. He moved to Los Angeles in 1975 and opened his first trend-setting salon in Beverly Hills three years later.

As clients clamored to see him, Eber began offering personal consultations to his customers, taking into account their face shape, personality and lifestyle--before shuttling them to other stylists for their hair cuts or weaves.

Over time, Eber said, he found himself frustrated by having to fuss with business matters when he considers himself an artist.

“I was very stressed because I had a hard time running the company,” he said. “I just couldn’t go on doing it, working like I had to work, round the clock, seven days a week, going nowhere.”

Eber said he is not worried by naysayers who frown on his new connection to Opal’s lower-end salons, where a haircut may go for $12, as opposed to the $125 some Jose Eber customers shell out for a trim.

“I’m not merging with Fantastic Sam’s, I’m merging with Opal,” he said.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.