Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts.

What happened?

Puig announced on Monday its intention to proceed with an initial public offering. The Spanish fashion and beauty conglomerate intends to apply for admission of the shares to listing on the Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and Valencia Stock Exchanges. The IPO targets an equity raise of over €2.5 billion. Following the offering, the Puig family will retain a majority stake as well as the vast majority of voting rights.

Puig chairman and CEO Marc Puig called the decision “a decisive step in Puig’s 110-year history”. “We strongly believe that building premium brands requires long-term thinking and having a family behind a company fosters this long-term approach, because they tend to care in equal measure about the time horizon of the next generation and the next quarter. At the same time, it is important for any family business to have the right checks and balances in place, particularly during generational transitions. We believe that the balance of being a family-owned company that is also subject to market accountability will allow us to better compete in the international beauty market during the next phase of the company’s development,” the executive said in a statement.

“Additionally, we believe that becoming a publicly listed company will align our corporate structure with those of best-in-class, family-owned companies in the premium beauty sector globally, help us to attract and retain talent, and support the growth strategy of our brands and portfolio,” he added.

Why does it matter?

Puig’s sales rose 19 per cent to €4.3 billion in 2023. Despite a strong performance, the company remains small compared to some of its rivals (by comparison, LVMH sales were up 13 per cent to €86.2 billion in 2023 and L’Oréal’s 2023 sales were up 11 per cent to €41.18 billion).

In the last few years, Puig’s embarked on an acquisition streak. The company acquired Charlotte Tilbury in 2020 and Byredo in 2022. Both deals were reportedly valued at approximately $1 billion, although Puig refuses to comment on those figures. In an interview with Vogue Business in 2023, Marc Puig explained the company’s decision to pause its M&A activities: “As a private company, we can only finance acquisitions with the resources we generate.” Yet, in January 2024, Puig announced another, albeit smaller, acquisition of Dr Barbara Sturm.