Men’s grooming cataloguer/etailer Mankind Direct and beauty
etailer Lookfantastic were acquired by The Hut Group late last
year as the multibrand group looks to strengthen its expansion
into luxury goods.
Through a combination of cash and equity, The Hut purchased
cosmetics etailer Lookfantastic Group for £19.4 million in
November. As part of the deal, Daniel Crown, chief executive of
Lookfantastic, joins the board of The Hut Group. In a statement,
Crown said he had been considering the prospect of outside
investment in the company in order to accelerate growth. He
decided to partner with The Hut partially because of its combined
database of 6 million customers in more than 40 shopping
categories.
In the year to 31st March 2010, Lookfantastic Group, which
includes the sites Lookfantastic.com, Lookmantastic.com and
BeautySleuth.co.uk, had sales of £20 million, EBITDA of
£2.8 million and pretax profits of £2.4 million.
Two weeks after announcing the Lookfantastic deal, The Hut made a
further acquisition, this time in the male-grooming market. It
bought Hampshire-based cataloguer/etailer Mankind Direct for
£2.5 million in cash.
Founded by Paul Jameson and Hilary Andrews in 2001, Mankind now
generates approximately £5 million in sales. Following the
acquisition, Andrews remains with the business, but Jameson has
left the company.
In a statement, Marc Gillespie, of Clearwater Corporate Finance,
which advised the shareholders of Mankind on the sale, hinted at
international expansion: “The acquisition will allow
Mankind access to The Hut Group’s ecommerce platform and its
customer database, offering notable opportunities to further
build market share both at home and abroad.”
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