L’Oreal SA yesterday announced the signing of an agreement with Brazil’s Natura & Co to acquire its Australian luxury cosmetics brand Aesop in a deal valued at US$2.53 billion.
The Aesop brand posted sales of US$537 million last year, according to a statement.
“Aesop taps into all of today’s ascending currents and L’Oreal will contribute to unleash its massive growth potential, notably in China and travel retail,” L’Oreal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said in the statement.
“We have great confidence that Aesop will join the L’Oreal Luxe Billionaire brands club and therefore contribute significantly to the growth of the division in the years to come,” said Cyril Chapuy, president of the group’s luxury division L’Oreal Luxe, adding that he looked forward to welcoming Aesop CEO Michael O’Keeffe and his teams.
The L’Oreal Luxe division, which includes brands such as Lancome, Yves Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani, was the group’s top performer for the second consecutive year last year, with sales climbing 18.6 percent to 14.6 billion euros (US$15.9 billion).
Natura chief executive Fabio Barbosa said “the divestment of Aesop marks a new development cycle for Natura & Co.”
“With a strengthened financial structure and a deleveraged balance sheet, Natura & Co, exercising strict financial discipline, will be able to sharpen its focus on its strategic priorities, notably our investment plan in Latin America,” Barbosa said.
Natura wanted to concentrate on “continuing to improve The Body Shop’s business and refocusing Avon International’s footprint,” he said.
Natura bought British cosmetics company The Body Shop from L’Oreal in 2017.
Founded in 1987, Aesop is known for its skin, hair and body products.
It operates about 400 stores in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, with a budding presence in China, where the first outlet opened last year.
L’Oreal, the world’s No. 1 cosmetics company, saw a 24.1 percent increase in net profit last year to 5.7 billion euros and an 18.5 percent increase in sales to 38.3 billion euros.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
INVESTOR RESILIENCE? An analyst said that despite near-term pressures, foreign investors tend to view NT dollar strength as a positive signal for valuation multiples Morgan Stanley has flagged a potential 10 percent revenue decline for Taiwan’s tech hardware sector this year, as a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar begins to dent the earnings power of major exporters. In what appears to be the first such warning from a major foreign brokerage, the US investment bank said the currency’s strength — fueled by foreign capital inflows and expectations of US interest rate cuts — is compressing profit margins for manufacturers with heavy exposure to US dollar-denominated revenues. The local currency has surged about 10 percent against the greenback over the past quarter and yesterday breached
RSS