As a result of increasing recession fears and continued stock market volatility, the Beauty Care industry experienced a significant drop in M&A volume in Q2’22, down 20% from Q2’21 and 17% from Q1’22. With only 24 transactions, Q2’22 ranked the lowest volume quarter since pandemic-impacted Q3’20.
Similar to last quarter, deal volume in Q2’22 was dominated by strategic buyers including Unilever, Wella, Helen of Troy, LG Household & Health Care, and Puig. Private equity remained active in the Beauty Care sector with deals announced by Gauge Capital, Eurazeo, Knox Lane, Sandbridge Capital, and Bansk Group – as well as activity from L Catterton and HGGC-backed Beauty Industry Group. From a category perspective, hair care transactions led the way with deals including BondiBoost, amika and Eva NYC, Gisou, Nutrafol, Briogeo, Curlsmith, and Bellami. In addition, Beauty Care contract manufacturing M&A activity continued with Knox Lane’s strategic investment in Elevation Labs. Lastly, concerns of a pending recessionary environment were amplified by the Revlon bankruptcy filing.
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Intrepid anticipates continued softness in the Beauty Care M&A markets for the next couple of quarters. The bar for consumer discretionary investments is rising due to macroeconomic concerns and increasing uncertainty, resulting in broken processes and delayed market timing from some sellers. Despite lower volumes, Intrepid believes that the Beauty Care M&A market will prove resilient for high-quality, rapidly growing brands given strong underlying fundamentals and supply-demand dynamics, as evidenced by our Intrepid deal pipeline and active M&A processes.
Q2’22 Beauty Care M&A highlights include:
● Deal volume was down 20% from Q2’21 and down over 17% from Q1’22.
● Strategic acquirers dominated the quarter with acquisitions from Unilever (Nutrafol), Wella (Briogeo), Helen of Troy
(Curlsmith), LG Household & Health Care (The Crème Shop), and Puig (Byredo).
● Private equity interest remained high in the Beauty Care sector with majority investments in BondiBoost by Gauge Capital,
Amika and Eva NYC by Bansk Group, and Elevation Labs by Knox Lane as well as minority investments in Gisou by Eurazeo
and U Beauty by Sandbridge Capital.
● Hair care transactions led the way with deals including BondiBoost, amika and Eva NYC, Gisou, Nutrafol, Briogeo,
Curlsmith, and Bellami.
● Private equity-backed Beauty Industry Group announced the acquisition of Bellami Hair (less than a year after L Catterton
invested in the platform alongside HGGC).
● Continued M&A activity in the Beauty Care contract manufacturing sector.