Shocking business news this weekend. L'Oréal has bought out the Body Shop for over £650 million. The Body Shop's founder Anita Roddick, the former high priestess of fair trade and ethical business practices, stands to make £117 million personally from the deal. Given L'Oréal's identity as a global behemoth in the cosmetics industry, it seems a pretty dodgy thing for Roddick to have done - as many in the press have already commented ("Oh Anita, It's Not Worth It", opined India Knight in today's Sunday Times).
In a press conference yesterday, Roddick protested that the French cosmetics giant had "flattered and seduced" her into accepting the buy-out. Indeed. (And I'm not even going to get into her choice of language there...that's a whole other rant in the making!)
I've never been a huge fan of Body Shop products, but I always admired Roddick's integrity and business model. She founded her first UK shop in Brighton in the late 70s, and most of the production still takes place at a factory not far from there. God knows what will happen to the business now.
1 comment:
I'm sure their true positions are probably closer to the mean than they're made out to be: Body Shop less saintly, L'Oréal less evil.
Personally, I'm waiting for the Hummer equivalent in the cosmetics industry: We test our products on cute fluffy animals all the fucking time -- because we ENJOY it! Or: We test our products on the skins and eyeballs of the BABIES of the sweatshop workers we pay 64¢/hour!
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