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Charlotte Tilbury, the eponymous founder of the premium cosmetics company, is seeking a renegotiation of the terms of her brand’s buyout, and complicating a potential Puig-Estée Lauder merger in the process, according to Spanish newspaper Expansión.
Puig, which also owns brands Byredo, Carolina Herrera and Paco Rabanne, acquired the British makeup line in 2020 for a reported $1.2 billion. It currently owns 78.5 percent of the brand, with Tilbury holding the minority stake. In 2024, Puig announced it would gradually extend its ownership of the brand to 100 percent in early 2031.
Describing the request as a “last-minute obstacle”, the Spanish-language paper said Puig’s existing agreement with Charlotte Tilbury includes a series of earn-outs and performance-based incentives, and that a change-of-control clause would give Tilbury the right to trigger a forced sale of her current stake. It could create a multi-hundred-million dollar liability that Estée Lauder Companies would be unwilling to assume. ELC declined to comment; Puig and Charlotte Tilbury did not respond to requests by the time of publication.
In mid-2024, Puig took a further 5.4 percent stake in the company, valuing it close to $4.6 billion, putting Tilbury’s stake at around $986 million, per Expansión. A final sale price would hinge on the line’s performance and profits at the time of the transaction.
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