Natura Sells The Body Shop for 340 Billion Won Amid Earnings Decline

Resold at One-Third the Price After 6 Years

British natural cosmetics brand The Body Shop has been sold to European private equity firm Aurelius. The sale price was ?207 million (approximately 340 billion KRW), about one-third of the 2017 acquisition price of €1 billion (?870 million).

According to major foreign media on the 14th (local time), Brazilian cosmetics company Natura, which is undergoing intensive restructuring, announced that it has signed a contract to sell its subsidiary The Body Shop to the Aurelius Group.

This sale is part of efforts to reduce debt. In April, Natura sold its subsidiary Aesop to French company L'Or?al for $2.53 billion, and in August, the board resolved to sell The Body Shop, which has been struggling due to deteriorating profits.

Natura is Brazil's largest cosmetics company, operating in more than 100 countries. It rapidly grew into the world's fourth-largest cosmetics group by sales after acquiring Australia's premium skin and body care brand Aesop in 2013 and purchasing The Body Shop from L'Or?al in 2017, but has since experienced poor performance due to worsening management.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

The Body Shop's sales sharply declined as it failed to properly respond to changes in the market environment after the pandemic, including securing non-face-to-face sales channels and the polarization of the cosmetics market into high-end and low-end segments. Its sales in the third quarter of this year were 830 million Brazilian reais, down 13.2% compared to the same period last year.

During the same period, Natura recorded a net profit of 7.024 billion reais thanks to the sale of Aesop, successfully turning a profit compared to a net loss of 560 million reais in the same period last year.

Fabio Barbosa, CEO of Natura, said, "With this sale of The Body Shop, we plan to reduce borrowings and focus our capabilities on the growth of other businesses such as Avon."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.