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7 Nov

Eurazeo Sells Majority Stake in Nest to North Castle

Eurazeo Sells Majority Stake in Nest to North Castle

Nest has a recent but somewhat familiar majority owner.

Investment company Eurazeo has sold its majority stake in the house scent and fragrance company to an investor group led by private equity firm North Castle Partners, in a transaction that values Nest at about $200 million. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Eurazeo and Nest founder Laura Slatkin will retain minority ownership positions.

North Castle Partners can be familiar to Nest as beauty industry adviser Wealthy Gersten was at Tengram Capital Partners when it was Nest’s essential backer and subsequently sold its majority stake to Eurazeo in 2017 for $70 million. Nest represents North Castle’s second beauty and private care investment within the last two years.

“I believe it’s amazing that somebody that invested within the brand before wants to speculate within the brand again,” said Jill Granoff, managing partner of Eurazeo and chief executive officer of its Brands division, in an interview. “I believe that speaks to the strength of not only the category however the brand itself, the performance it’s achieved and the leadership team.”

While she declined to provide specific sales numbers, Granoff added that overall brand sales tripled, direct-to-consumer sales increased tenfold and EBITDA margins significantly expanded since 2017 when Eurazeo’s Brands division launched with Nest as its debut investment.

“We’ve got healthy margins and consumer love is just phenomenal so we thought that now was the time to usher in a partner and as you understand we’re staying on board in order that we will construct upon the strong foundation,” she added.

For his part, Gersten told WWD that “investing in something you understand and understand is all the time less dangerous than investing in something brand recent.”

“We’ve been involved within the brand for five years successfully and watching its success in the following 4 or five years because it was initially sold just obviously gave me great confidence in what I all the time knew — it’s a fantastic brand with a loyal consumer base and a whole lot of growth,” he explained.

North Castle doesn’t plan to alter the manager leadership team, with Maria Dempsey and founder Laura Slatkin remaining on as CEO and executive chairman, respectively.

Under the brand new investment the essential focus can be international and category expansion, with Nest launching within the U.K. last yr through Cult Beauty and recently making its debut in Selfridges.

Elsewhere, it’s gearing as much as introduce the brand in Sephora Middle East, before expanding further into Europe and moving into China, in addition to having a deeper give attention to wellness.

“When we expect concerning the future roadmap the subsequent three to 5 years, it’s really all about expanding our product categories and really leaning into wellness and leaning into fantastic fragrances and likewise geographic expansion,” Dempsey said. “We’re primary within the U.S. by way of home fragrances and a top 10 fantastic fragrance brand at Sephora, however the world is on the market for us.”

As for recession fears, Slatkin believes that indisputable fact that it managed to perform well during its launch within the 2008 financial crisis that saw consumer spending slump means t is somewhat recession resistant.

“As we embark on our next five years, with Wealthy and North Castle on board — and Eurazeo’s continued participation — I see us developing a robust roadmap together to expand the brand across categories and across the globe,” she said.

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