Aaron Serruya

Aaron Serruya is a Managing Director at Serruya Private Equity (SPE) and CEO of International Franchise Inc. (IFI), positions he has held while building one of Canada's most prominent family-managed investment groups. With over three decades of experience in retail franchising, consumer brands, and private equity, Aaron has been instrumental in creating and scaling multi-national food service and retail empires.

Aaron began his entrepreneurial career at age nineteen when he co-founded Yogen Früz alongside his brother Michael in 1986. The Serruya family had immigrated to Canada from Morocco in 1966, escaping growing anti-Semitism. After witnessing the success of frozen yogurt shops in the United States while operating a bagel shop with an uncle in Miami, Aaron and Michael decided to bring the concept to Canada. Aaron worked directly with food technicians to develop the frozen yogurt flavors while Michael focused on branding and design. They opened their first location at The Promenade Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ontario in August 1986. The concept of made-to-order frozen yogurt blended with fresh fruit proved immediately successful, and within one year the company began franchising. By 1989, Yogen Früz had franchised its 100th store.

Aaron attended Western University and Westmount Collegiate Institute. In 1995, along with his brothers Michael and Simon (who joined the company in 1989 at age 18), Aaron was named Operator of the Year by Foodservice and Hospitality Magazine. The same year, the brothers took Yogen Früz public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, raising $30 million to fuel aggressive expansion through acquisitions of competitors including I Can't Believe It's Yogurt and Golden Swirl. In 1998, the Serruyas merged their company with Integrated Brands (an American frozen dessert manufacturer) to form CoolBrands International, which became the third-largest frozen dessert CPG manufacturer in North America after Unilever and Nestlé. By 1999, Entrepreneur Magazine rated Yogen Früz as the number one franchise in the world.

Aaron served as a Director at CoolBrands International, Inc. from 1994 to 2005. In 2013, when Kahala Brands (an Arizona-based franchise operator that had acquired Blimpie in 2006 and merged with Cold Stone Creamery in 2007) went to auction, the Serruya family acquired the company. Aaron served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kahala Brands until July 2016, spending nearly three years turning the struggling business around before selling it to MTY Group in May 2016 in a lucrative exit.

In 2014, Aaron assumed the role of Managing Director at Serruya Private Equity, the family-managed venture group that oversees the investment activities of the Serruya family. Since then, he has overseen investments across consumer packaged goods, retail, business-to-business services, and real estate. He also serves as President and Director at Kahala Brands, Inc. (since 2013), and President at Pinkberry Canada, Inc. (since 2015). As President of International Franchise Inc., Aaron manages a portfolio that includes global brands such as Yogen Früz, Pinkberry, and Swensen's Ice Cream, comprising over 4,500 quick service restaurants in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Serruya Private Equity is a global private equity firm focused on transforming companies by collaborating with management to develop and implement strategies that leverage SPE's operational and financial resources. The firm takes a flexible, opportunistic approach to capital deployment, pursuing creative and bespoke investment solutions with the ability to move quickly on transactions.

Investment Focus:

Value-Add Approach: Aaron and the SPE team capitalize on opportunities where they can provide significant operational value, drawing on decades of experience scaling franchise concepts, managing multi-national operations, and executing turnarounds. The firm's deep expertise in consumer brands and franchise systems allows them to add strategic value beyond capital.

Geographic Focus: Primarily North America (Canada and United States), with global franchise operations extending to over 50 countries.

• Industries: Consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail, franchising, business-to-business (B2B), real estate, hospitality, cannabis, and automotive dealerships
• Asset Classes: Senior debt, convertible debt, preferred equity, equity
• Company Stage: Private or public companies with revenues ranging from $5 million to $1 billion
• Key Criteria: Strong management teams and leading consumer brands