Hutchison Buys Ailing Beauty Retailer; Purchase of Marionnaud For $700 Million Bolsters Group's Cosmetics Portfolio

Friday's deal brings to an end a turbulent few weeks for Marionnaud's Mr. [Marcel Frydman], who built up the family-run business from just a handful of stores in France in the mid-1980s to become one of Europe's leading perfume retailers with more than 1,200 stores -- only to see it s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Wall Street journal Asia
Main Author Simon Clow and Laetitia Fontaine in Paris and Rebecca Buckman in Hong Kong
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Victoria, Hong Kong Dow Jones & Company Inc 17.01.2005
Subjects
Accounting
Cosmetics
Executives
Retail stores
Tender offers
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Summary:Friday's deal brings to an end a turbulent few weeks for Marionnaud's Mr. [Marcel Frydman], who built up the family-run business from just a handful of stores in France in the mid-1980s to become one of Europe's leading perfume retailers with more than 1,200 stores -- only to see it slide into financial crisis amid the recent accounting scandal. Last month, the 73-year-old executive said that because of accounting errors, the company had incurred a 79 million euros loss for the first half of 2004. The disclosure sent Marionnaud's shares into a nosedive, sparked rumors of an imminent takeover bid and raised serious questions about how the company was being managed. France's stock-market regulator is expected to complete an investigation into Marionnaud's accounting difficulties by autumn. Trading in its shares was suspended in Paris last Tuesday. Hong Kong-based A.S. Watson said in a statement it wants to "revitalize Marionnaud" by leveraging the firm's brand and integrating it into Watson's global chain of retail outlets, which would grow to more than 5,660 health-and-beauty stores with the acquisition. Watson doesn't run any stores in France, though it has more than 3,500 in 10 other countries in Europe plus about 950 stores in Asia.
ISSN:0377-9920