Coty CEO Markus Strobel stated he is “open” to a potential early ending of the French beauty giant’s Gucci beauty and fragrance licence, which was acquired by L’Oréal as part of its Kering Beauté deal last year.
Strobel, speaking during a Q&A session as part of Coty’s Q2 2026 financial update, was asked by Nik Modi, from RBC Capital Markets, about how the business will manage after the Gucci licence ends.
In response, Strobel stated that “job number one is to drive our big brand franchises” and push new innovations to coincide with the licence ending in 2028
“We have many big brand franchises that are basically over $0.5 billion, like Hugo Boss, Burberry, to the next level,” said Strobel.
“They still have a huge growth potential. Marc Jacobs has huge growth potential. Chloé has huge growth potential.
“So we are basically pretty busy cooking new initiatives and new innovations for the years 2027, 2028, [and] 2029, that coincide with the Gucci exit in June 2028.
“I think [the plan] is, to really have the right pipeline to build our top-line sales and compensate part of this.”
Coty has recently secured licences with Armani, Etro, and Swarovski, and Strobel mentioned “big plans” for the latter during the call.
“We are going to come up with what we hope to be a real blockbuster in 2027,” he added.
“On Gucci, as we get closer to the licence exit, we probably also need to look into our cost structure, how we kind of tweak this a bit to keep all our profitability intact.”
Modi also asked if Coty is open to ending the Gucci Beauty licence early.
“We are always open for deals that create value for us, that create value for our shareholders. So yes, we are open,” said Strobel during the call.
Kering revealed its intent to sell its beauty division to L’Oréal in October 2025, which will see the beauty giant acquire fragrance and beauty licences across a number of Kering brands, such as House of Creed.
The partnership also includes the rights to enter into a 50-year exclusive licence for the creation, development, and distribution of fragrance and beauty products for Gucci.
This will commence after the expiration of the current licence with Coty, which is set to end in 2028.
Coty has held the licence to create Gucci products for more than a decade, having acquired it through the purchase of Procter & Gamble's speciality beauty business in 2016.