Palamon agrees sale of Feelunique to Sephora
Palamon Capital Partners (“Palamon”) is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement to sell Feelunique (the “Company”) to Sephora, the world’s renowned omnichannel Prestige Beauty retailer owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s leading luxury products group. The transaction is expected to complete later in the second half of 2021 following customary regulatory clearance. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.
Headquartered in London, Feelunique is a leading online retailer of prestige beauty products in the UK, offering its 1.3 million active customers an unparalleled range of 35,000 products from more than 800 established luxury, niche, independent and challenger brands. Palamon acquired Feelunique from its founders, having identified the attractive growth dynamics and defendable nature of the online beauty category, which is predicated on developing trusted relationships with the brand owners. Featured brands include Chanel, Clinique, Estée Lauder, Aveda, Tom Ford, NARS, Armani, Dermalogica, Charlotte Tilbury, Anastasia, Huda Beauty, and Clarins.
Since acquisition, Palamon has worked with the Company to enhance its market position, through a programme of infrastructure building and growth, which quadrupled the size of the business. This has involved expanding the brand offering, relocating the distribution centre to the UK to enhance customer experience, opening international markets, investing into the technology platform to enrich customer experience, and launching UK’s emerging beauty marketplace platform. Palamon appointed Sarah Miles, former Head of Apparel for Amazon, as CEO in 2019 to lead Feelunique’s next phase of growth, becoming the online destination for prestige beauty and the hub for connecting customers and brands.
Following the acquisition, Feelunique will continue to be led by the current management team.
Sarah Miles, CEO of Feelunique, said, “We are delighted to join forces with Sephora, whose Prestige positioning is the perfect fit for our prestige brand offering. With the support of Palamon and its co-investors we have created a renowned online player in UK beauty at the forefront of a significant market opportunity. With the new strategic backing and resources of a global retail group we are truly excited about the prospects for Feelunique to accelerate its growth.”
Louis Elson, Managing Partner at Palamon, said, “In Feelunique we have built on the great work of the founders to create one of the market leaders in online beauty retail at a time when the importance of the digital commerce channel to global distributors has never been greater. We are therefore delighted with this strategic sale to Sephora. Our thanks go to Sarah and her team who worked so hard to put the Company on a profitable and rapid growth trajectory ahead of the restrictive lockdowns and then so successfully responded to capture the surge in demand for its unique online offering.”
