Sona MedSpa President Ready to Resurrect Franchise

Exclusive: With Amos and Rose Out, No Pending Litigation, Ashbridge vows, "That Chapter Is Closed"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Blue MauMau) - Byron Ashbridge, new President and Co-CEO of Sona MedSpa, said today in a telephone interview, "We believe there is a great opportunity for being able to resurrect the company from the standpoint of complacency in the past couple of years because of litigation."  He said there was no litigation pending, that all of it had been cleared up.  He declared, "We are looking at that as a chapter that got closed." 

Last Friday, Blue MauMau reported that Ashbridge's five-center Sona franchise company purchased the franchise network of Sona MedSpa International headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.  Ashbridge also confirmed that Heather Rose, CEO prior to the purchase, and father Jim Amos are no longer part of the organization.

After a 22-year career with Bank of America, as Senior Vice President in charge of managing large numbers of support centers, he joined Sona MedSpa in early  2003 as a franchisee. His business partner, Joe Pitt, who will be Chairman and Co-CEO of the new Sona MedSpa company, had previously been with Carousel Capital, a private equity firm. When Rose and Amos purchased the Sona franchise in 2005, Carousel also had an interest in the franchise. Going forward with this latest merger, Ashbridge said Carousel has a minority interest, and he and Pitt will have the controlling interest. He said, "We do believe that there is a tremendous opportunity for the company going forward. Clearly I would not have merged our centers with the national (Sona) organization if I didn’t feel that way."

Moving Forward with Franchisees

As Ashbridge's company takes over the Sona MedSpa franchise, he said they now have twenty-seven franchise locations. Although it was previously reported that his company had five centers in North Carolina--three in Charlotte, one in Raleigh and one in Greensboro--he said they also had one in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. But he feels the merger will not impact current franchisees, saying certainly not from a negative standpoint. Ashbridge said they have talked to each franchisee and overall the reception has been very positive. He said, "Our intent is to be able to utilize the experience gained from having been a franchisee since early 2003, and having built a pretty large organization here in North Carolina. We believe we can take that experience and guide franchisees better from the standpoint of actually having sat in their seat."

Ashbridge feels that they have a number of other things that they have built within their own company, a company within a company, as they were a franchisee. He said, "We built our own infrastructure to a certain degree to supplement what was provided from corporate support. And we will be able to utilize that infrastructure across the organization as well."  He explained that they have some key marketing people, and a business development center, where all of their new calls come into. Ashbridge said, "Some of our franchisees have expressed interest in being able to gain access to that type of support."

Ashbridge also revealed that the headquarters will be transitioned to Charlotte, however they do plan on retaining a presence in the Nashville area (Franklin) as well. He said currently there is a Sona MedSpa center in the Nashville market, and the company will keep some degree of corporate staff there. He added that there are a lot of new opportunities that are going to be made available to each of the franchisees to assist them in being successful in their center and market.

In closing, Ashbridge said he knew Sona MedSpa has had quite a history, but he feels they now have a very, very strong belief that the organization has a solid future.  He said, " We feel we have a good game plan in order to make that happen." He hope everyone will give them the benefit of the doubt. "

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Sona MedSpa Merges with Franchisee Ashbridge