Natura has sold Avon International for £1. For a company that spent $2 billion on the global acquisition just five years ago, the price is symbolic — and devastating.
For three decades, the Brazilian group seemed to be writing a unique story: a local champion daring to become a global beauty multinational. It bought Australia’s Aesop in 2013, Britain’s Body Shop in 2017 and, in 2019, Avon’s operations outside the US in a $2 billion all-share deal. The result was the world’s fourth-largest beauty group. Its rhetoric was green and global. Executives spoke of the Amazon rainforest as a planetary brand and of Brazil as a new hub for sustainable consumption.
The backdrop, however, flipped upside down. The world of five years ago — multipolar, globalised and environmentally focused — has given way to a more regionalised and protectionist environment, marked by geopolitical tensions and fossil fuels back at the centre. Then came the pandemic: with people stuck at home, make-up was no longer a priority. Saddled with debt — including a Chapter 11 at a subsidiary — weak results and cash burn, the “tropical L’Oréal” shrank. The Body Shop was sold, Aesop handed back to L’Oréal for $2.5 billion and Avon International was offloaded for a pound to a US private equity fund.
Focusing on Latin America is not defeat. Natura remains relevant in the region, where its brand recognition is high and direct selling still works. Integrating Avon and Natura locally may yield real synergies. But the global narrative, which supported its valuation and lured investors, has collapsed.
From global giant to regional player in half a decade: the pound paid for Avon symbolises the cost of dreaming too big. The world has changed — and not necessarily for the better.
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