Recently, The Guardian and other foreign media reported that Auréa Group announced the acquisition of all the assets of The Body Shop International (hereinafter referred to as "The Body Shop"), the originator of pure beauty, including its United Kingdom stores and control of stores in Australia and North America, the acquisition amount was not disclosed.
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The Body Shop第四次易主完成
In mid-July, media reported that The Body Shop's co-managers had reached an exclusive agreement with the Auréa Group and would conduct a period of due diligence with the deal expected to close in the coming weeks. According to The Guardian, the Auréa Group announced on September 6 that it had finally finalized the deal.
Under the agreement, The Body Shop's remaining 113 stores in the United Kingdom, which employ more than 1,300 people, will remain open.
For its part, Auréa said the acquisition of The Body Shop was its largest deal to date, with the aim of "driving the revival of The Body Shop and regaining its global leadership in the field where it pioneered 'the ethical beauty'".
Auréa Group的领导者Mike Jatania将担任主席,美容品牌Molton Brown的前首席执行官Charles Denton将担任The Body Shop的首席执行官。
"With the acquisition of The Body Shop, we have acquired a truly iconic brand with highly engaged consumers in more than 70 markets around the world," said Mike Jatania. We plan to relentlessly exceed our customers' expectations by investing in product innovation and a seamless experience across all channels where they shop, while staying true to the brand's positioning. ”
Notably, the Auréa Group has previously negotiated with several suppliers to secure working capital for the business. Previously, Sky News reported that the Auréa group was in advanced talks with retail investor Hilco Capital to secure more than £30 million in working capital.
Steve Baluchi, Director of FRP, Managing Director of The Body Shop, said: "We are delighted to be handing over The Body Shop to a new and experienced owner with many years of successful experience in retail transformation. They recognize the immense value of this household name and have a clear vision for its future. ”
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It has changed hands four times, and its value has plummeted
According to public information, The Body Shop is a vegan beauty brand founded in 1976 by environmental and animal rights activist Anita Roddick in United Kingdom. The brand has gained a large consumer audience with its pioneering proposition of adhering to environmental protection and opposing animal testing. In the 80s, The Body Shop became one of the most recognisable high street brands in United Kingdom.
Less than 10 years after its founding, The Body Shop was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was valued at £80 million when it went public in 1984. After its listing, its stock soared, rising by more than 500%, and at the height of the limelight, The Body Shop had more than 4,000 stores worldwide.
In 2006, The Body Shop was sold to L'Oréal for £650 million. However, the addition of The Body Shop did not bring the expected return to L'Oréal. According to the financial report, The Body Shop's revenue growth has been only 17% in the ten years since the acquisition, and the brand's profitability has begun to shrink year by year since 2013.
2017年,欧莱雅集团以8.8亿英镑的价格将The Body Shop出售给巴西美妆巨头Natura &Co。
Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L'Oréal, commented: "We may be too loyal to the spirit of the brand because we don't want to change too much, in fact, we don't change enough. It's always hard to strike a balance. You have to evolve, but you also have to respect the brand. We've really put in the effort for 10 years. I still think it's a beautiful brand with a lot of visibility around the world, and maybe someone else could do better. ”
The Body Shop has undergone a series of changes since it was taken over by Natura &Co, including a modern redesign of the store and a complete rehaul of the product portfolio to rejuvenate the brand. Thanks to Natura &Co's revamped The Body Shop, its performance has returned to growth for a while.
Data shows that between 2017 and 2021, The Body Shop's net revenue growth reached 166.8%. However, in 2022, The Body Shop's net income suffered another 24.3% decline. In 2023, The Body Shop's net income even fell by 14.6% in the first nine months.
As a result, in November 2023, Natura &Co sold The Body Shop to Germany private equity firm Aurelius "at a loss" for £207 million. However, just three months after the deal, The Body Shop declared bankruptcy.
Subsequently, The Body Shop officially appointed FRP as its manager, who said it would "accelerate the restructuring" of its United Kingdom operations. At the end of February, FRP closed 75 underperforming stores at The Body Shop, resulting in the loss of 489 jobs.
"The reduction in store footprint will coincide with a renewed focus on the brand's products, online sales channels and wholesale strategy, aligning the brand with its peers and supporting the return to financial stability," FRP said. ”
Management had previously attributed the retailer's woes to "a prolonged period of financial challenges during the previous owner's tenure and a difficult trading environment across the retail industry".
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Why not?
After several changes, The Body Shop has changed hands from being sold to L'Oréal for £650 million, to being sold by Natura &Co to Germany private equity firm Aurelius for a much lower purchase price of £207 million, and now changing hands four times, it is clear that The Body Shop's value is far from worth its original value. So what is it that has led it from a hot and clean beauty product to where it is today?
It is reported that Clean Beauty first originated in the United States in the 70s of the 20th century, and the foreign pure beauty market at the beginning of the establishment of The Body Shop was still in a state to be explored. The Body Shop's success is due to its commitment to environmental protection, pioneering attitude and unique positioning, which preemptively occupied the pure beauty market at that time. In addition, The Body Shop is the first beauty brand to launch a campaign against animal testing in cosmetics.
The Body Shop's products mainly include edelweiss series, ginger series, tea tree series, etc., among which ginger shampoo, tea tree oil essence and English rose shower gel are its three popular star items. The Body Shop has won the support of a large number of consumers with its distinctive attitude and safe and comfortable washing and care experience, and is also loved by Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana of the United Kingdom royal family.
However, with the prevalence of sustainable and eco-friendly concepts, more and more beauty brands are paying attention to incorporating into the pure beauty track. Typical brands such as Aesop, Australia's pure skincare brand, Aesop, Drunken Elephant, etc. In China, brands represented by Yiyezi, Dewy Lab, CODEMINT, RED CHAMBER, etc., continue to make efforts to make pure beauty.
Brand Essence Market Research predicts that clean beauty is currently the most promising category in the market, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.07% and a scale of $11.56 billion in 2027.
With the emergence of more and more brands with the same positioning as The Body Shop, coupled with the slow pace of product launches and upgrades, the "uniqueness" and advantages of The Body Shop are no longer obvious, and even less than many "latecomers".
According to the information updated by The Body Shop's WeChat public account, since the beginning of this year, The Body Shop has launched a new ginger washing and care series, and it is an upgrade of the packaging and ingredients made on the original product series. Last year, The Body Shop also launched only a new Floral fragrance line and an upgraded Tea Tree Purifying range.
In the Chinese market, The Body Shop, which had previously been blocked from entering Chinese mainland due to "no animal testing", took the opportunity to enter the Chinese market in 2018 with the implementation of new regulations and opened an overseas flagship store on the Tmall platform. However, at present, The Body Shop has not made further arrangements for the Chinese market in recent years. From another point of view, China's pure beauty can be said to be still in its infancy, and it can be said that it is more difficult for overseas pure beauty to get a piece of the pie from China.
With the establishment of a new owner, and whether The Body Shop can return to the growth track under the new leadership, the CBO will continue to watch.