Douglas Group Sets IPO Date

Jennifer Weil
·2 min read

PARIS — Douglas Group plans to launch its initial public offering on March 21 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in order to help with restructuring and debt reduction.

The German omnichannel prestige beauty retailer said the price range has been set at 26 euros to 30 euros per Douglas share. The offer includes 34.6 million shares maximum, comprised of up to about 32.7 million primary shares and 1.9 million secondary shares.

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This range implies a total market capitalization of 2.8 billion euros to 3.1 billion euros.

The news comes less than one week after another beauty-related company, Galderma Group AG, revealed it intends to launch an IPO on the SIX Swiss Exchange in a matter of weeks.

IPOs are heating up in the beauty space as stock markets rally and interest-rate rises mitigate. Spanish beauty and fashion company Puig has said it is mulling an IPO as part of strategic options for the future. And Brazil’s Natura & Co. is considering spinning off beleaguered Avon into a separate publicly traded company.

“The deleveraging associated with the IPO will increase our financial flexibility and provides additional support for our successful development,” said Sander van der Laan, chief executive officer of Douglas Group, in a statement.

The company aims for gross proceeds from the sale of primary shares of about 850 million euros.

“Together with an additional equity injection into the capital reserves of 300 million euros from the current shareholder, the equity contribution of approximately 1.15 billion euro will be used, together with available cash and gross proceeds of approximately 1.3 billion euro under the Douglas Group’s new 1.6 billion loan agreement (including an undrawn revolving credit facility of 0.3 billion euro) for a full refinancing of existing financial indebtedness to continue deleveraging the Douglas Group’s balance sheet, supporting future growth,” the company said in the statement.

The company leveraged substantially after its business was hit during the coronavirus pandemic. At the end of the first quarter of 2024, Douglas’ net financial debt was 3.06 billion euros.

The offer period should begin March 12 and end March 19.

After the completion of the IPO, 29.3 percent to 31.8 percent of the company’s share capital is expected to be held by new shareholders. CVC Capital Partners and the founding Kreke family are to retain their indirect investments in Douglas Group equal to indirect holdings of 54.5 percent to 55.5 percent for CVC and 10.2 percent to 10.4 percent for the Kreke family. Meanwhile, executive board members will retain 2.5 percent to 3.4 percent.

Nine years ago, when the group was called Douglas AG, it was sold to CVC. The news in 2015 came just days after Douglas said it would reenter the stock market after two years of restructuring and streamlining.

Douglas became formally called Douglas Group in February.

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