L’Occitane is set to become a private business, after receiving a privatisation offer from controlling shareholder, L’Occitane Groupe.
The retailer’s majority shareholder and chair Reinold Geiger said it had secured funding from Blackstone and Goldman Sachs for a £1.43bn take-private transaction yesterday.
The offer values the beauty and skincare company, that has been listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange since 2010, at £5.12bn, and looks to allow its current management team to focus on long-term sustainable growth as a private business.
L’Occitane Groupe is offering to buy all outstanding shares of the company it does not already have at a purchase price of £3.52 per share in cash.
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The group is planning to finance the deal via external debt facilities from Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, as well as using additional capital from Blackstone and Goldman Sachs.
In a statement, Geiger said: “The transaction we are launching today will enable us to focus on rebuilding the foundation for the long-term sustainable growth of our company.”
The billionaire owner initially contemplated taking the cosmetics business private in August, when he was said to be in advanced talks of a take-private deal.
L’Occitane said in an announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange at the time that reports of a takeover deal included a “misleading timetable and baseless rumour about the offer price”.
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