Coty pushes ahead with plans for dual Paris listing

Receive free Coty Inc updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Coty Inc news every morning.

Heavily indebted cosmetics maker Coty will sell 33mn new shares as part of a plan to seek a dual listing in Paris, hoping that a foothold on the French exchange will boost its profile with beauty-focused investors.

The maker of cosmetics lines including CoverGirl and Maxx Factor will offer the shares to investors globally, the company announced on Monday. Stock will be available to the public in the US and through private placements on the professional segment of Paris’s Euronext exchange for the first time, subject to approval from France’s market regulator.

Coty first announced it was examining a dual listing in May to add to its current presence on the New York Stock Exchange, where it first went public in 2013. At the time the company said it wanted to tap pools of European investors and sector expertise in a market that is also home to L’Oréal, the world’s biggest beauty company by sales.

The expanded offering to investors is a show of confidence in a turnaround of the business under the leadership of Sue Y Nabi, a beauty veteran who was hired in 2020 to revamp operations as the fifth chief executive in as many years.

Coty had been struggling with management churn and heavy debts but, since she took over, the share price has nearly tripled in value from lows below $4 to more than $11.80 today.

The decision to explore a dual listing earlier this year was supported by the beauty company’s controlling shareholders, JAB Investments, which is backed by the German billionaire Reimann family.

BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Citigroup and Santander are jointly acting as bookrunners for the offering. Coty said it would use the proceeds to pay down debt and for strategic investments in the business.

Founded in Paris in 1904, Coty now owns more than 70 brands including the beauty licenses for fashion houses owned by French groups LVMH and Kering. Under Nabi, Coty has expended its higher-end beauty ranges while working to improve performance at its struggling mass-market cosmetics division.

Last year it reported its first profit in half a decade and said it was on track to hit a target to reduce its leverage ratio to three times ebitda by the end of 2023.