IThere’s a smell of rosemary and lavender floating around the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the moment. The L’Occitane en Provence course is suspended pending a major announcement. The Bloomberg agency understands that the company is seeking to delist.
And to finance the withdrawal, the owner, the Austrian Reinold Geiger, is in discussions with the American fund Blackstone. The company is considering a 20% premium on the share price of this company whose market capitalization exceeds 5 billion euros.
This is not the first time that the entrepreneur has tried to leave Hong Kong. He had already attempted a first operation, in September 2023. At 76, Reinold Geiger, who has become, thanks to the Provençal group, one of the richest men in Austria, is perhaps thinking of his succession. His son Adrien is already there, and a new boss took office on 1er April, Laurent Marteau, a former executive of LVMH and La Prairie.
A nice surprise from the Americas
At a time when its competitor The Body Shop is in great difficulty, L’Occitane stands out as a success story with its eight brands in 90 countries, its 8,500 employees and a turnover of more than 2 billion euros. Coming from a family of mountain dwellers, Mr. Geiger spent most of his career in France, founding a cosmetics packaging company which he sold to invest, in 1994, in the king of lavender soap.
It was in 1976 that Olivier Baussan founded L’Occitane, producing essential oils and soaps. After spectacular but costly growth, the company comes under the control of investors. Reinold Geiger buys them out, reinstates the founder and develops the company on all continents. Clarins took a stake in 2001, and in 2010, the company was listed in Hong Kong, raising nearly 500 million euros to develop in China.
But Chinese growth is no longer what it used to be. Penalized by the withdrawal of Russia and asset write-downs, the firm saw its net profit drop by 50% in 2023. The good surprise came from the Americas, with the success of its Elemis and Sol de Janeiro brands, which boosted its global sales, growing by almost 20%.
Despite its headquarters in Switzerland and the low share of its sales in France, the company claims its roots, which are essential to its marketing. L’Occitane sells Provence, its lavender fields and its small producers, concentrated around Manosque (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), where a good part of its factories are still located. The Riviera and its hinterland still fascinate customers and obviously also the big guns of New York finance.