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.
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.
ReplyDeletePersonally, 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!