AURELIUS finalizes sale of Scandinavian Cosmetics Group to Accent Equity

Munich/Stockholm — AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE000A0JK2A8) (“AURELIUS”) has successfully comple­ted the sale of its subsi­diary Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics Group to Accent Equity 2017, a Scan­di­na­vian invest­ment fund.

Successful carve-out and trans­for­ma­tion into leading Nordic brand manage­ment company
Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics serves brand owners such as Coty, Clar­ins and Sensai as an exclu­sive value add distri­bu­tor for cosme­tic products in the Nordics. AURELIUS had acqui­red the busi­ness from Swiss Valora Group in Janu­ary 2016. The acqui­si­tion of the former Valora Trade Divi­sion consis­ted of FMCG acti­vi­ties (today port­fo­lio company Cona­xess Trade) and cosme­tics acti­vi­ties (today Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics Group), both mana­ged out of Switz­er­land at acqui­si­tion. After sepa­ra­ting both busi­nesses, estab­li­shing a stand-alone finan­cing struc­ture and imple­men­ting an inde­pen­dent manage­ment, an exten­sive trans­for­ma­tion program was imple­men­ted inclu­ding invest­ments in new warehouse manage­ment systems, the intro­duc­tion of a new KPI report­ing, a revi­sion of the exis­ting product range and cate­gory expan­sion. Major effi­ci­ency impro­ve­ment and busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment projects such as the deve­lo­p­ment of a new e‑commerce and online stra­tegy further drove the company’s growth. Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics Group’s stra­tegy towards one Nordic group drove an ambi­tious regio­nal expan­sion into the Danish and Finnish markets.

Acce­le­ra­ted growth through active M&A consolidation
In addi­tion to opera­tio­nal chan­ges, two stra­te­gic add-on acqui­si­ti­ons substan­ti­ally impro­ved the company’s presence as the largest manu­­fac­­tu­­rer-inde­­pen­­dent luxury and consu­mer brand manage­ment company in the Nordics, leading to a 25 percent reve­nue increase. “Scan­di­na­vian cosme­tics has under­gone an exten­sive trans­for­ma­tion program,” said Florian Muth, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Aure­lius. “With the support of AURELIUS, the company has deve­lo­ped into a strong and leading market player. The tran­sac­tion clearly illus­tra­tes that our intense opera­tio­nal focus combi­ned with a dedi­ca­ted growth stra­tegy pays off.”

The buyer, Accent Equity, will support Scan­di­na­vian Cosme­tics in its next growth phase.

On this tran­sac­tion, AURELIUS was advi­sed by ABG Sundal Collier (M&A), PwC (Tran­sac­tion Services and Tax) and Vinge (Legal).