Your commercial news round-up: Cult Beauty, fertility treatments, Lidl, EY, Morrisons
updated on 05 August 2021
Application season is over and we are all now gathering around the TV to watch the summer Olympics! So far, we’ve seen McKeown go viral for dropping the F-bomb, Simone Biles return for Bronze and even caught Tom Daley knitting. But what else has been going on besides the Tokyo games?
- Cult Beauty was taken over by the Hut Group (THG) in a £275 million deal;
- more law firms offer to cover the costs of fertility treatments;
- Lidl launched a new self-scan app;
- EY settled charges in court; and
- Morrison’s bidding war intensifies.
Read a summary of these stories below.
- Yesterday, the health and beauty ecommerce giant, THG, acquired Cult Beauty in a £275 million takeover. The Manchester-based company initially started out by selling CDs online, but over the years has acquired a diverse array of brands from posh hotels to protein shakes, this year adding Cult Beauty to its portfolio. Cult Beauty is a site founded by Alexia Inge and Jessica DeLuca in 2008 that sells about 300 skincare, haircare and cosmetic brands including Charlotte Tilbury. The UK’s retail industry has seen soaring interest in online shopping post-covid-19, with many seizing the golden opportunity to expand; just last week Sephora bought Feelunique for £132 million.
- More City firms are offering paid leave and pay towards the costs of fertility treatments in a move to retain their lawyers. Just last week Ashurst launched a “landmark” global parental leave policy to strengthen support for working parents; key aspects of the policy include paid leave “irrespective of gender identity” for pregnancies and pregnancy losses. The policy also covers five days of paid leave for anyone needing to access fertility treatments. This announcement follows news of Cooley and Clifford Chance offering all partners and staff £45,000 for fertility treatments. The legal profession is also currently in a pay war with firms increasing NQ salaries to match US rivals and retain lawyers.
- Lidl plans to launch a new self-scan app called ‘Lidl Go’. The scan-as-you-shop technology will allow customers to scan and pay for items, including unlabelled fruit and vegetables, by using their smartphones to scan barcodes, akin to Amazon Go. The new technology will be trialled at a Lidl branch in Fulwell, southwest London. The German retailer slumped to a £25 million loss in the year before the pandemic struck due to store expansions and a huge hiring spree.
- Meanwhile in the banking sector, EY and three audit partners settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over claims of misconduct. The SEC found that EY improperly interfered with Sealed Air’s choice of an external auditor by obtaining confidential information. Sealed Air is an American bubble wrap maker with almost £3.6 billion in revenue. The big four giant settled £7.2 million in court to close the case of audit independence misconduct, according to the Financial Times. EY is also facing a lawsuit over its auditing work for NMC Health in an alleged six-year fraud alongside the Bank of Baroda and Credit Europe Bank.
- A successful private equity-led takeover bid for Morrisons could trigger a break-up of the grocer, according to City analysts. Private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) plans to start a bidding war and if successful aims to partner up with Motor Fuel Group to open Morrisons convenience stores at more than 900 petrol stations. The firm also hopes to explore “more imaginative” ways to use the excess space on Morrison’s websites.
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