L'Occitane Will Go Private
The French beauty company has received enough support to delist from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
PARIS – L'Occitane International SA is moving ahead with plans to delist from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In late April, Reinold Geiger, L'Occitane's majority shareholder, initiated a 1.7 billion euro offer to acquire the 27.4 percent of the company he did not already own, with the backing of Blackstone. His offer valued the maker of Sol de Janeiro, L'Occitane en Provence and Elemis products at around 6 billion euros.
L'Occitane said in a statement Tuesday that 91.97 percent of disinterested shareholders had tendered their shares, which surpasses the threshold needed to move forward with a squeeze-out of shares not tendered to the share offer. Therefore, L'Occitane Holding SA, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the group's controlling shareholder, will acquire the remaining shares, leading to the final steps in L'Occitane's privatization process.
“This transaction will provide our group with the flexibility to make longer-term business decisions,” Geiger said in the
statement. “We remain committed to our brand-specific and geography-specific strategies. We firmly believe that this is in the best interests of our employees, business partners and stakeholders, who will benefit from our accelerated growth and enhanced competitiveness in the global skin care and cosmetics industry.”
The company plans to suspend its shares starting Aug. 7.
L'Occitane en Provence was founded in 1976 by Olivier Baussan, an entrepreneur from Manosque, France, 50 miles north of
Marseille, who set up a small fragrance and soap facility with $4,000.
In 1994, Geiger became a minority shareholder in L'Occitane before taking it over in 1996, when he became the group's chairman. The executive took the company public in 2010, raising more than $700 million.
Today, L'Occitane counts more than 3,000 doors in 90-plus countries. Other brands in its portfolio include Melvita and Eborian.
The company's net sales in the fiscal year ending March 31 reached 25.4 billion euros, a 19.1 percent on-year increase. Its net income declined 18.6 percent to 93.9 million euros.
L'Occitane's move to go private is countercurrent to some other beauty companies' recent strategies, with
Puig's initial public offering in May, and Galderma in Switzerland and Douglas in Germany floating in March.
In April, L'Occitane said that a mix of industry dynamics — including its increasingly competitive environment — and pressures of operating as a listed company underlies the rationale for going private.