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The Beauty Care M&A market started the year with 28 transactions in Q1’19. While flat with Q1’18 and down slightly from a strong Q4’18, the 28 transactions demonstrated the continued strength of the beauty care M&A market and evidenced a convincing start to our fourth consecutive year with over 100 beauty care deals.
Although the quarter started off slow, it quickly gained steam with deals announced by several of the usual strategic acquirers, including Unilever and Procter & Gamble as well as a number of less active beauty care strategic acquirers such as Church & Dwight, Puig and L’Occitane.
Furthermore, private equity interest in the sector remained unabated with standalone investments from Kainos Capital, Main Post Partners, San Francisco Equity Partners and Gryphon Investors. We also continued to see private equity platforms in play with acquisitions by New Mountain-backed Topix and the acquisition of JD Beauty and subsequent merger with ACON Investments’ portfolio company Goody. Intrepid advised JD Beauty, a portfolio company of Topspin Partners, on its sale to ACON.
Finally, the market continued to see an uptick in corporate carve-outs with the sale of RoC Skincare by Johnson & Johnson and the announcement by Helen of Troy that it is exploring the divestiture of its Personal Care Business.
Q1’19 Beauty Care M&A highlights include:
- Deal volume remained flat with Q1’18 and was down 3% from a strong Q4’18.
- Strategic acquirers remained active including announced deals from Procter & Gamble, L’Occitane, Church & Dwight, Puig and Unilever.
- Private equity beauty care platforms continued to expand with the acquisition of ClarityRX by New Mountain-backed Topix and the acquisition of JD Beauty by ACON, which will merge JD Beauty with existing portfolio company, Goody Products.
- Private equity beauty care appetite persisted with investments from Main Post Partners, San Francisco Equity Partners, Gryphon Investors and Kainos Capital.
- Venture capital remained active as highlighted by several large later-stage investments including a $100 million Series D investment in Glossier, a $50 million round by Madison Reed, a $100 million Series C round in Hims and a $35 million investment in Memebox.