Regis Corporation

Regis Corporation

Company type	Public
Industry	Hair salon operator
Founded	1922 (1922)
Founder	Paul Kunin and Florence Kunin
Headquarters	Minneapolis , United States
Area served	United States, Europe, Americas
Products	Hair salon services; brands include SmartStyle, Supercuts, Holiday Hair, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, Regis Salons, MasterCuts, Pro-Cuts, Famous Hair, Roosters Men's Grooming Center

Regis Corporation is a U.S.-based hair salon operator, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of August 2021, the company managed 5,563 franchised locations along with 276 salons owned directly. Its key brands encompass SmartStyle, Supercuts, Holiday Hair, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, Regis Salons, MasterCuts, Pro-Cuts, Famous Hair, and Roosters Men's Grooming Center.

History

The company was established in 1922 by Paul and Florence Kunin under the name Kunin Beauty Salon. Ownership transferred to their son Myron in 1958, who renamed the business Regis and redirected its operations from department stores to shopping mall venues. By the mid-1980s, Regis had grown to operate 500 salons and generated annual revenues of $150 million. The firm went public in 1991 and set up its corporate headquarters in Edina, Minnesota, a year later.

Regis pursued growth through strategic acquisitions: in 1993, it acquired 88 salons from Trade Secret Development Corporation to expand its hair and beauty product distribution. By 1994, the upscale Regis Hairstyles brand contributed approximately 64% of total sales. In 1996, the company completed a $150 million stock transaction to acquire SuperCuts, thereby extending its footprint into strip malls and street-level locations. By 1998, Regis operated 3,555 salons under various brand names and surpassed $1 billion in annual sales.

The year 1999 marked a merger with The Barbers, Hairstyling for Men & Women, Inc., which added over 4,600 salons to its portfolio and established Regis as the primary salon provider within Wal-Mart stores through the Cost Cutters brand. Subsequent acquisitions included Family Hair Care, City Looks Salons International, and We Care Hair.

By 2002, Regis had entered the Fortune 1000 ranks and acquired Jean Louis David—comprising 1,200 locations across Europe and the Americas—as well as BoRics salons to bolster its presence in Chicago and Detroit. Additionally, it secured Vidal Sassoon salons and academies through licensing agreements with Procter & Gamble to expand across North America and Europe.

In the following years, Regis maintained an aggressive acquisition strategy by adding Holiday Hair (2004), Hair Club for Men and Women (2005), and Famous Hair salons (2006) to its holdings. A proposed $2.6 billion acquisition of Sally Beauty Company in 2006 was ultimately abandoned. By the end of that year, Regis operated more than 11,300 salons globally alongside beauty schools and Hair Club facilities.

Between 2007 and 2008, Regis combined its European franchise operations with Franck Provost Salon Group to create Provalliance Group—retaining a 30% stake—and acquired PureBeauty and BeautyFirst salon chains throughout 20 states.

Confronting market pressures around 2010-2011, Regis divested Trade Secret (which later filed for bankruptcy), discontinued the Pro-Cuts sports-themed concept by 2015, and experienced temporary board influence from hedge fund Starboard Value. It increased its stake in Provalliance to 46% before eventually exiting due to the European debt crisis. In 2012, Regis sold Hair Club for $163.5 million while acquiring the Roosters Men’s Grooming Center franchise.

Although operating roughly 8,000 salons by 2013, the company faced six consecutive years of declining sales. In October 2017, Regis divested most of its mall-based salon assets to The Beautiful Group as franchises under existing brand identities while shifting focus toward value-oriented segments. The corporate headquarters moved to Minneapolis in 2018 amid closures of numerous SmartStyle locations.

During 2019-2020, additional salon properties were sold to franchisees—including SuperCuts locations transferred to Moxie Management Group—and Super C Group acquired multiple brands’ salons. The company streamlined its brand portfolio from about fifty down to five main names: Supercuts, SmartStyle, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, and Roosters. Franchise agreements with The Beautiful Group ended at the close of 2019 as plans were made to resell repossessed salons.

The COVID-19 pandemic hastened Regis’s shift from corporate ownership toward a franchise-centric model. By late 2022, despite not reporting a profitable quarter since 2018, the company improved earnings after exiting product distribution operations and selling its technology platform Opensalon Pro.

In December 2024, Regis completed a $22 million acquisition of Alline Salon Group—its largest franchisee—bringing over 300 SuperCuts, Cost Cutters, and Holiday Hair locations under direct corporate management across Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.