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Richemont is flexing its muscles in the highly competitive beauty market. The Swiss luxury conglomerate announced on Wednesday that Boet Brinkgreve has been appointed to the newly created role of CEO of Laboratoire de Haute Parfumerie et Beauté, reporting to Richemont chairman Johann Rupert.
Brinkgreve joins Richemont from nutrition, health, and beauty company DSM-Firmenich, where he held a number of positions from 2007 till 2023, most recently as president of ingredients division and group procurement, and a member of the executive committee.
Boet will establish and lead our new Laboratoire de Haute Parfumerie et Beauté to enable our six maisons already involved in fragrance [Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chloé, Alaïa, Montblanc and Dunhill] to reach critical mass in this highly competitive field, where scale is crucial,” said Rupert in a statement.
While the Cartier fragrance business is managed internally (composed by in-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent), the other brands are under licence (Montblanc and Van Cleef & Arpels with Interparfums, Chloé with Coty, for example). It’s understood that the rationale behind this newly created division is to share best practices between these businesses and help them better compete in an industry led by giants like L’Oréal and the Estée Lauder Companies.
“In partnership with the maisons, and while respecting their unique high-end positioning, the platform will leverage resources across our maisons to help develop the most refined creations and promising licences,” said Rupert. The chairman also praised Brinkgreve‘s “commitment to sourcing sustainable ingredients”.
Will this pave the way for beauty acquisitions? “I believe the focus of the Richemont beauty division will be to manage the businesses they already have in their portfolio. [It] remains to be seen if they will want to acquire other beauty businesses to gain scale and expertise,” says Mario Ortelli, managing director of Ortelli & Co. While licence agreements are in place, the news on Wednesday morning sent Interparfums shares down 9.8 per cent in midday trading.
It comes after Kering earlier this year announced a new beauty entity led by former Estée Lauder Companies executive Raffaella Cornaggia. LVMH, the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, has its perfumes and cosmetics division, which generated €7.7 billion in 2022.
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