![]() Jeremy’s main focus at the moment is communicating Grown Alchemist’s mission to more people. We kept it really tight so we could support them, but there’s a bunch of other retailers we’d love to work with – like Credo – and now we can,” Jeremy said.įor him, the beauty of being part of L’Occitane Group is that he no longer has to decide which market or project to prioritise: “Now, we get to say, ‘Why don’t we do it all?’” “In California, we have half a dozen retailers in a market that’s substantially bigger than Australia. Grown Alchemist is already stocked in major global department stores, including David Jones, Harrods, Nordstrom, Holt Renfrew and Takashimaya, but the Muijses see a lot of room for growth. “Now we can say, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing opportunity, let’s do it’.” “We’ve had a lot of opportunities over the years that we haven’t made the most of either because we didn’t have the manpower to really get behind them, or because we’ve had to say, ‘We’d like to do that, but could we do it in 12 months or two years?’” Jeremy said. ![]() Pre-acquisition, it probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up with that level of demand. Launched in January, the kits will introduce Grown Alchemist to millions of potential new customers a year. “We’ve hired 20 people in two months, and it will just continue to go up,” Jeremy said.Īs the team expands to include senior leaders with industry experience, the business will finally have the bandwidth to take advantage of exciting opportunities that come its way, such as supplying lip balm and lotion for Delta Air Lines’ new amenity kits. So far, the biggest change has been to the brand’s headcount. L’Occitane announced its acquisition of Grown Alchemist for an undisclosed sum at the end of March. “By the time we actually signed the document, there were very few things that weren’t known,” he said. This period gave both parties time to get to know each other and make sure they were really in alignment on key issues. Although with the bankers constantly checking in to make sure the deal was still on the table, “it was like courting each other with a chaperone.” We thought we should court each other a little bit,” he explained. “Every other large group that we looked at over the years had a way of doing business that you had to join, whereas when L’Occitane bought brands, each one of them remained very much its own entity,” Jeremy said.īut it would still be another year before they agreed to make the acquisition official. You make lots of revenue, but you don’t make enough profit, so you run out of cash,” Jeremy said.īut with the resources of a multi-billion-dollar company behind it, that wouldn’t be a problem.Īfter meeting L’Occitane Group’s vice chairman and CEO André Hoffmann, the Muijses became convinced that selling a majority stake to the French retailer was the right move. It was an attractive offer, especially for a small but successful brand like Grown Alchemist, which couldn’t always take advantage of the growth opportunities that came its way. “That could all be managed through the group.” “He told us that L’Occitane had the ability to carve 20 years off our journey, and we would get to focus on the bits that we really love – product creation and brand mission – and not worry about setting up the company in other markets or employing people,” Jeremy recalled. The co-founder and CEO of luxury skincare brand Elemis, which L’Occitane bought in 2019, had moved to Western Australia during the Covid pandemic, so he eventually flew to Melbourne and pitched the brothers in person. I would have said that any other way was a disaster,” Jeremy said.īut Harrington was persistent. “Our view was you get into business, you own the majority, you run your company, you have complete control on every level, and the moment you don’t, you exit. Alchemist internationally, they didn’t want to relinquish control over their brand, and L’Occitane was set on taking a majority stake.
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