L’Oreal SA’s €4 billion ($4.7 billion) purchase of Kering SA’s beauty business marks the largest in a string of recent deals by the French cosmetics group, as it builds out its range of luxury brands.
Inside Creed’s London flagship store – Dr
The acquisition showed the owner of Maybelline and Lancôme is willing to pounce when prized assets are up for grabs at an attractive price. Creed’s valuation was lower in the deal than the €3.5 billion Kering paid for it in 2023, a person familiar with the talks said, declining to say by how much.
L’Oreal Chairman Jean-Paul Agon approached Kering’s then CEO Francois-Henri Pinault in the past year about striking a beauty deal, people familiar with the transaction said. Pinault is still chairman of Kering but was replaced as CEO last month by Luca de Meo. The talks accelerated in September, one person said.
The all-cash purchase was billed as a beauty and wellness partnership between Kering, the owner of Gucci, and L’Oreal. Beyond Creed, L’Oreal will also get 50-year licenses to develop and market beauty offerings for Kering’s fashion brands, including Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and eventually Gucci — once that license is freed from its partnership with Coty Inc.
The Gucci license is set to become available in 2028 at the latest, according to the deal terms, people familiar said.
Berenberg analysts led by Nick Anderson estimate Creed is being valued at €2.5 billion in the sale, implying a writedown of around €1 billion on the 2023 purchase price, they said Monday in a note. They estimate the Gucci license is worth €1.5 billion.
The deal “comes at a price, namely a one-third write-down of an asset bought just two years ago,” the analysts said.
Kering investors still welcomed the deal, sending shares as much as 5.5% higher in Paris. With the sale, leverage will come down close to 1.5 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization from 2.3 times at the end of last year, according to estimates by Banco Santander SA.
The move to offload the beauty business is “positive, not only to improve the balance sheet, but also to focus on its core luxury brands,” Santander analyst Mariano Szachtman wrote.
Representatives for L’Oreal and Kering didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A Coty representative declined to comment. The companies will also explore business opportunities in the fields of luxury, wellness and longevity, they announced.
Kering has struggled in recent years with slumping sales at its biggest brand, Gucci, and an increasing debt load after a series of pricey deals, including Creed and premium property acquisitions. De Meo vowed last month to slash debt and costs.
L’Oreal, meantime, has been on an acquisition spree. It bought Aēsop in 2023 at an enterprise value of about $2.5 billion, and recently purchased South Korean brand Dr. G, a majority stake in Medik8, and minority stakes in Omani high-end fragrance maker Amouage, French fashion brand Jacquemus, and Galderma Group AG, which specialises in injectable skin fillers.
Some of these recent purchases are part of L’Oreal’s growing luxury portfolio, which is overseen by Cyril Chapuy.
Investors are also waiting for a resolution as to who will buy an initial 15% stake in Giorgio Armani SpA following the founder’s death last month. L’Oreal, which has a license with Armani to market its fragrance, makeup and skincare products until 2050, was named as a one of the preferred buyers in Giorgio Armani’s will along with EssilorLuxottica SA, another license holder, as well as LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.
On the Kering deal, L’Oreal was advised by Bank of America, Rothschild and PVC PH. Villin Conseil. Kering was advised by Centerview and Evercore.
Omnichannel rules! Expect hybrid shopping “to define Christmas spending this year” as 87% of UK consumers plan to shop both online and in-store for gifts this year.
Image: CACI
That’s according to data specialists CACI, who flip the data to show that just 7% intend to shop exclusively in-store, and only 6% plan to do all their shopping online.
Generational and gender differences, of course, come into play, revealing further nuances with 19% of male Gen Zers saying they intend to shop entirely online, compared with just 1% of females in the same age group.
At the other end of the spectrum, 13% of male and 7% of female Baby Boomers expect to purchase all their gifts in-store, “showing that physical retail remains more prominent among older shoppers”, although not in the numbers we might expect.
The report highlights that last year’s retail performance “further supports the advantage of having a strong multichannel presence” as brands that enabled both physical and digital buying behaviour, with seamless integration, personalisation, and strong app and online experiences, “had some of the biggest gains”.
CACI took Korean beauty retailer PureSeoul as an example: “Known for combining digital reach with selective in-person experiences, the… brand more than doubled its sales in December 2024 compared with the same month the year before (up 118%)”.
Meanwhile clothing/lifestyle giant Uniqlo reported a 22% year-on-year omnichannel increase in December 2024 sales.
Alex McCulloch, Director at CACI, said: “If we look at the data from last Christmas, and what we’re hearing from consumers now, it’s clear that the brands set to win this season are the ones that recognise the need for a true multichannel approach.
“Not just because it’s practical, but because physical stores help build loyalty that carries over to online. That loyalty is being reinforced even earlier, as more retailers turn their stores into experiential spaces – some operating almost like ‘clubhouses’ that create connection and community long before a purchase is made.”
OpenAI and Disney announced on Thursday that they have entered into a three-year licensing agreement that will enable the use of Disney’s characters on Sora, a platform for videos created with generative artificial intelligence (AI), a strong signal for the AI content ecosystem.
Disney and OpenAI announced their agreement on Thursday – Sora
Under the partnership, Disney will take a $1 billion equity stake in OpenAI and receive warrants enabling it to acquire additional shares in the company behind ChatGPT at a later date.
Launched at the end of September, Sora positions itself as a social network where only AI-generated videos can be published. The platform runs on OpenAI’s generative video model, Sora 2, successor to the original Sora model, whose generic name has been adopted for the app.
From the outset, Sora featured unauthorised content using brands, the likenesses of public figures, and visual worlds inspired by existing programmes, cartoons, films, and series. Many videos included characters directly inspired by those of Pixar, a Disney subsidiary, as well as several cartoons owned by the entertainment giant, such as ‘Family Guy.’
A few days later, Sam Altman indicated that OpenAI intended to offer rights holders greater control over the use of materials that are theoretically protected by intellectual property rights.
Under the collaboration unveiled on Thursday, Sora users will now be able to create videos drawing on a catalogue of more than 200 characters from the Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars universes, according to a joint press release. However, these are limited to animated characters, masked characters or creatures, and do not include real human actors.
“Technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world,” said Robert A. Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, in the release. “Rapid advances in artificial intelligence mark an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI, we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our stories through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”
The tie-up between the two groups goes beyond Sora, as Disney will become a “major customer” of OpenAI. The Burbank, California-based company will give its employees access to ChatGPT and use OpenAI’s models to “create new products, tools and experiences.”
For Sam Altman, also quoted in the press release, this agreement “shows that AI companies and content publishers can work together responsibly to promote innovation.” Sora and ChatGPT Images are expected to begin producing fan-inspired videos featuring Disney’s multi-brand licensed characters in early 2026.
With AFP
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Sophie Kinsella, the highly popular British author whose bestselling novels have been translated the world over, notably the Shopaholic series, died just before her 56th birthday from a brain tumour she had been diagnosed with in late 2022.
Sophie Kinsella
Kinsella faced her condition with great courage, and described her experience in her last book, published in 2024, poignantly entitled What Does It Feel Like?
“We are heartbroken to announce the death this morning of our beloved Sophie (alias Maddy, alias Mummy),” posted Kinsella’s family, her husband Henry Wickham and their five children, as they gave the news of the author’s passing. “Despite her illness, which she endured with unimaginable courage, Sophie considered herself very fortunate to have such a wonderful family and friends, and to have had an extraordinarily successful writing career. She took nothing for granted and has always been grateful for the love she received,” the family added.
Kinsella, whose real name was Madeleine Sophie Townley, would have turned 56 in two days’ time and, as her family pointed out, she and her loved ones tried to make the most of their final days together. Kinsella, whose books sold 50 million copies and have defined chick lit as a genre, revealed her health problems to her many readers last year. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, and underwent surgery as well as several rounds of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
“I didn’t reveal this earlier because I wanted to make sure my children were able to hear and process the news privately, adapting to our new normal,” she told her community of fans. Many of them, upon learning of the author’s death, paid tribute to her on social media.
The search for positive meaning despite a traumatic illness was at the heart of Kinsella’s last novel, in which the protagonist, a famous writer called Eve, begins to gather the memories of what really matters to her: long walks holding her husband’s hand, evenings spent playing parlour games with her family, and the treat of buying a dress she likes. The novel is made up of short chapters, each attempting to answer the most difficult issues shared by those navigating the labyrinth of pain. The book was also a way of staying close to those dealing with cancer, as Kinsella herself did in some of her statements after she revealed her illness.
Kinsella was born in the London suburb of Wandsworth on December 12, 1970. She graduated in PPE at Oxford University and briefly worked as a finance journalist before starting to write romance novels aged 24. She gained global fame – after publishing a few well-liked novels under her real name – with The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, published in 2000 as Sophie Kinsella, soon followed by Shopaholic Abroad. Then came another eight titles in the Shopaholic series and 13 standalone novels, from Can You Keep a Secret? (2003) to The Burnout (2023) and What Does It Feel Like? (2024), as well as a handful of young adult novels. The first two Shopaholic books were adapted into the film Confessions of a Shopaholic, released in February 2009 with Isla Fisher in the title role.
In 1991, Kinsella married Henry Wickham, whom she had met at Oxford. Together they had five children, and lived between Dorset and London, where she was treated.
Politics8 years ago