PARIS — Oriflame’s founders have made a cash offer of 8.89 billion Swedish kronor, or $922.5 million, to purchase the shares in the beauty company that they do not already own.
Oriflame’s main owner, the af Jochnick family, with 30.81 percent of the Swedish group, said Wednesday that the offer it made to company stakeholders through Walnut Bidco plc is at 227 kronor a share. That values Oriflame at 12.9 billion kronor.
Oriflame is a direct-seller of its own makeup, skin care, body care, hair care, personal care and fragrance. Its competitors include Avon Products Inc. and Yves Rocher.
“Our family has been deeply involved with Oriflame since it founded the company in 1967, and has a strong sense of responsibility as the company’s main shareholder,” Alexander af Jochnick, representative of Walnut Bidco and chairman of Oriflame, said in a statement.
“It has become increasingly obvious to the family that the company is facing a number of headwinds,” he continued, referring to a slowdown in activity in Asia and Turkey, for instance. “The family believes that the company needs to undertake a repositioning in key geographies, and that achieving this repositioning has challenges in the public market. We have therefore chosen to make an offer for the shares in the company that the family does not already own, in order to enable Oriflame to achieve this repositioning with the benefit of private ownership.”
Oriflame in a different statement said a bid committee, comprised of independent board members, will review the offer with its advisers, and that its opinion would be revealed no later than two weeks prior to the acceptance period’s expiry.
In 2018, total company sales for Oriflame Holding, based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, reached 1.32 billion euros, down 3 percent year-on-year.
The company’s largest markets by sales in the period were China, Russia, Mexico and Poland. Its number of active representatives grew by 1 percent.
The group for 2018 came in 32nd in the WWD Beauty Inc top 100 ranking of beauty manufacturers, not including revenues from wellness products and accessories.
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