LONDON – The Body Shop, the British beauty and cosmetics retail chain, said Tuesday it appointed insolvency administrators after years of financial difficulties.
The company, which grew from a single store in 1976 to become one of the most recognizable retailers with hundreds of stores in and outside the U.K., is known as an early advocate of ethical business practices.
FRP, the administrators hired by The Body Shop, said they “will now consider all options to find a way forward for the business.”
“The Body Shop has faced a long period of financial challenges under the previous owners, coinciding with a difficult trading environment for the retail sector in general,” FRP said.
A few weeks ago, Aurelius, a European private equity firm specializing in buying and restructuring troubled companies, took control of the business.
The soap, cream and makeup retailer was founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick and her husband as one of the first companies to promote ethical consumption, highlighting fair business practices and skin care products that were not tested on animals.
Roddick, an environmental and human rights activist as well as entrepreneur, was lauded as the “Green Queen” because she put corporate social responsibility and environmentalism front and center in her business long before it became fashionable.
The brand became very popular in the 1980s, when it was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and has stores in some 80 countries.
Roddick and her husband sold The Body Shop to beauty giant L’Oreal in 2006. The brand passed to Natura, the Brazilian cosmetics company in 2017, which sold it to Aurelius late last year in a deal valued at about $261 million. The company employed about 7,000 people worldwide at the time of the acquisition.
At the time, Aurelius expressed optimism that it could revitalize the iconic British brand “despite the challenging retail market.”
The chain will continue to operate, but the news that it entered insolvency administration is likely to put hundreds of jobs at risk.