Brazil: Natura acquires The Body Shop

Brazil´s largest cosmetics company Natura Cosmeticos is acquiring the British cosmetics cpmpany The Body Shop owned by L´Oréal for 1 bilion Euro. The French cosmetics giant L’Oréal expects to finalise a deal with Natura this year. The initiative was started by L’Oréal earlier this year when they put Body Shop up for sale to end the 11 "unhappy year" since L`Oréal purchased the The Body Shop from founder Anita Roddick in 2006. L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, had to learn that the brand once viewed as a trendy eco-friendly label lost its attractivity. Body Shop’s operating profits dived 38% to 34m Euro in 2016, while sales sank nearly 5% to EUR 921m. 

For Natura Cosmeticos the acquisition is attractive because it would help it take a step towards internationalisation. The Body Shop operates in 66 countries and has more than 3,000 outlets, 133 of them in Brazil. Its turnover makes it about half the size of Natura (estabkished 1969). In 2014, it became the first company to be certified as a “B corp”, meeting certain standards of social and environmental performance and transparency.