The cosmetics retailer Body Shop has also filed for bankruptcy for its branch in Germany. The company The Body Shop Germany GmbH submitted a corresponding application to the Düsseldorf District Court on Wednesday, according to court announcements. The Düsseldorf lawyer Biner Bähr was appointed as the provisional insolvency administrator. According to the Federal Gazette, the chain had 66 branches and more than 350 employees in Germany in 2021.
The Body Shop had already filed for insolvency for its stores in its home country of Great Britain on Tuesday. The company operates more than 200 stores in the UK. The company is owned by the German investment company Aurelius. Founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick and her husband Gordon, The Body Shop was one of the first companies to focus on ethically produced cosmetics and skin care products and to avoid animal testing in the production of their products. Aurelius, based in Grünwald near Munich, only took over The Body Shop from the Brazilian company Natura in November 2023 for 207 million pounds (243 million euros). At that time, around 10,000 people worked for The Body Shop worldwide. The brand previously belonged to the French group L’Oréal. Recently, Aurelius agreed to sell the company’s operations in most of mainland Europe and parts of Asia to an asset management company. For 2022, The Body Shop reported a pre-tax loss of £71 million on sales of £408 million. According to its own information, the company is represented in 89 countries worldwide.