The French cosmetics group L’Oreal is strengthening itself in the lucrative luxury care business. The company is taking over the world-famous Aesop brand from Brazilian Natura, as the company announced on Tuesday night. Natura put the enterprise value at a good 2.5 billion US dollars (around 2.3 billion euros). The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter. Natura wants to focus more on its brands The Body Shop and Avon. In 2013, the Brazilians took over the majority of the Aesop brand, which was founded in Australia. Aesop had sales of $537 million last year. Natura had previously considered a partial or complete sale of the brand. L’Oreal had sales of around 38.3 billion euros last year and wants to expand its luxury care business with Aesop. The head of the luxury division, Cyril Chapuy, was confident that Aesop would make a significant contribution to the growth of the business in the coming years and would crack the one-billion mark in sales. The takeover still has to be approved by the authorities.
L’Oreal pays $2.5 billion for Aesop – economy
