US household products maker S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. is to sell Canadian body care and fragrance retailer Fruits & Passion to a subsidiary of South Korea’s LG Corp. The buyer is cosmetics retailer The Face Shop Company Ltd., subsidiary of LG Household & Health Care, a unit of South Korean conglomerate LG Corp. No value for the transaction was given. Fruits & Passion boutiques will continue to operate as it does currently, under its own brand name.
The Face Shop operates in 26 countries and generates annual sales of US$400m. The deal will enable The Face Shop to nearly double its store count as Fruits & Passion’s roughly 2,000 locations joins its existing network of 2,200 stores. Nearly all Fruit & Passion’s stores are in Canada, although there are also outlets in the Philippines, Switzerland, Qatar, the UAE, and one in South Korea.
International growth is increasingly important for LG as its domestic market slows. Overseas cosmetic sales, mainly in Japan and China, grew 49% to South Korean Won 82bn in the first quarter.