The Hut Group just acquired Perricone MD for $60 million cash

“THG’s stated Beauty M&A strategy is to acquire industry-leading brands and intellectual property, typically constrained by store-based retail channels and limited geographic reach,”​ explains yesterday’s media release about the Perricone MD deal.

“Through immediate implementation of THG’s Ingenuity Platform, brands gain direct access to consumers across the globe. This enables THG’s brands to reach a truly global audience, whilst directly controlling every element of the consumer experience and delivering materially accretive margins.”​

Currently The Hut Group, which Matthew Moulding founded in 2004, owns cosmetics and personal care brands such as ESPA, Christophe Robin, Grow Gorgeous, Illamasqua, Mio Skincare, Mama Mio, Eyeko, and Ameliorate.

And the company has partnered with other well-known beauty brands and businesses like Burt’s Bees, Elemis, By Terry, Groupe L’Occitane, and PZ Cussons Beauty to help them grow in the D2C space.

Perricone MD gets serious about direct-to-consumer skin care with the help of THG

Dermatologist and nutrition specialist Dr. Nicholas Perricone founded his eponymous skin care brand in 1997.

Over the years, Perricone MD has made a name for itself as a top-tier antiaging skin care brand and boasts nearly 100 patented technologies. The Perricone MD product portfolio is sizeable; there are some 10 different product lines (including a supplements line), and products that address elasticity and firmness, lines and wrinkles, acne, dullness, enlarged pores, etc.

The brand, of course, is already active in the direct-to-consumer space as well as across conventional retail channels; and, according to this week’s media release, “is profitable at the EBITDA level.”​

Perricone MD has for years worked with Lookfantastic (an online beauty retail platform that THG has owned since 2010). This partnership gave THG access to useful data on the brand: “Lookfantastic has been an important long-term partner for Perricone MD, enabling THG to build a significant understanding of the brand over many years,” ​affirms the media release.

And, “in the last 12 months, Perricone MD has seen very significant sales growth on Lookfantastic, which has given further confidence in the acquisition rationale of the brand,” ​states the THG release.

Moulding also tells the press that “Perricone MD has a strong heritage, a loyal customer base and is a truly exciting addition to THG’s beauty portfolio.”​

THG takes a multi-faceted strategic approach to D2C beauty

“The online beauty and skincare sector is growing rapidly,” ​notes Moulding in his recent remarks about the Perricone MD deal. “And this acquisition,” ​he says, “enables us to further strengthen our position as the world’s leading pure-play specialty beauty brand owner and retailer.”  ​

THG calls its in-house end-to-end ecommerce platform THG Ingenuity; and this is the roster of services it delivers for both THG owned brands and external partner brands as well. “Perricone MD will now benefit from the powerful and sustainable infrastructure of THG Ingenuity, which has a proven track record of scaling revenues and enhancing the margins of acquired brands,” ​says Moulding.

What follows are just a selection of the resources THG will deploy to bolster the D2C success of Perricone MD globally:
(text that follows is taken verbatim from yesterday’s media release)

• 14 THG fulfilment centres globally, powered by proprietary management software 
• 29 data centres globally ensuring rapid website speeds across all key markets
• 50+ payment options across 40 currencies, localising consumer payment options 
• In-house digital marketing and a proprietary influencer platform (THG Society)
• 6,000 native linguist network delivering specialised translation services (THG Fluently)