Coty completes P&G deal; Pane becomes CEO

NEW YORK – Coty has completed its acquisition of Procter & Gamble's fine fragrance, color cosmetics, salon professional and hair color and certain styling businesses.

Coty is now the third-largest beauty company in the world, with approximately $9 billion in revenue. As previously announced, following the completion of the merger, Camillo Pane became the new chief executive officer of Coty.

“It is my great privilege to take over the reins of leadership at such a transformational moment,” Pane said. “Today marks a new chapter in Coty’s rich heritage. With this merger, we have brought together a powerful portfolio of much loved beauty brands and some of the world’s most talented people in beauty and consumer goods. I believe this combination, together with our distinctive entrepreneurial culture, focused and lean operating structure, and efficient earnings model, will enable Coty to be a challenger in the beauty industry. We aim to relentlessly pursue superior products and solutions, build brands that inspire and enable consumers to celebrate and liberate their own individual beauty.”

Coty is now organized into three divisions: Coty Consumer Beauty, Coty Luxury and Coty Professional Beauty.

Coty Consumer Beauty is focused on color cosmetics, retail hair coloring and styling products, body care and mass fragrances, with the intent of providing consumers with innovative products primarily in the mass retail channel. Its iconic brand portfolio includes Adidas, Bourjois, Clairol, COVERGIRL, David Beckham, Katy Perry, Max Factor, Rimmel, Sally Hansen and Wella.

Coty Luxury is focused on expanding Coty’s leadership position in prestige fragrances and emerging position in skincare, in the Luxury Beauty market across all regions and luxury channels, including travel retail. Its fragrances include such well-known brands as Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Chloé, Gucci, Hugo Boss, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Davidoff and Miu Miu, amongst others, and skincare brands include Lancaster and philosophy.

Coty Professional Beauty is focused on servicing salon owners and professionals in both hair and nail care, covering all key salon segments and salon client needs. The professional-focused brands include Clairol Professional, Nioxin, OPI, Sebastian Professional, System Professional and Wella Professionals.

Coty said in a statement that it anticipates its first half revenue trend will be below prior year results and the results for the combined company, as Coty continues to make strategic choices to build a better business, including rationalizing wholesale distribution, and as resources that normally work on the business have been working on closing the transaction and the future of the combined company. Coty says it remains committed to return the Coty business back to growth in the second six month period and is targeting to strengthen Coty’s growth rate in the following fiscal years.

"The completion of this transaction is a key step in our journey to return P&G results to a balance of strong top-line growth, bottom-line growth and cash generation," said David S. Taylor, P&G chairman, president and CEOExecutive Officer. “This effectively completes the major work we undertook two years ago to streamline and strengthen our product portfolio. We are now focused on 10 product categories and about 65 brands where P&G has leading market positions and where product technologies deliver performance differences that matter most to consumers.”