Symrise has agreed to make a strategic investment in Kobo Products Inc., a powder and dispersion specialist for the beauty industry.
Symrise considers the investment a strategic step to expand its activities into inorganic UV filters and decorative cosmetics. Symrise will acquire a 25 % stake and agreed with Kobo on the future disposition of shares of Kobo ́s capital stock and the governance of Kobo.
Strategic plan
“With this investment, we fast-track our strategic plan to expand into decorative cosmetics. It enables us to stay at the forefront of consumer trends by bridging colour and skin care cosmetics,” says Dr Jörn Andreas, president of Cosmetic Ingredients Division at Symrise AG. “We will combine Kobo’s broad range of market-leading product lines in surface treated pigments, sun care and colour dispersions with our decades of experience in manufacturing and marketing high-quality cosmetic ingredients. Our customers will benefit from an unmatched range of UV filter products and a full spectrum of formulations and integrated solutions.”
Incorporated in New Jersey in 1987 and headquartered in South Plainfield (NJ USA), Kobo Products Inc. is a pigment & powder specialist, providing innovative, technology-based raw materials to the cosmetic industry. Kobo has a very large colour palette of surface treated pigments and dispersions to supply the market demand for make-up products for a wide range of skin tones. It’s a market leader in mineral sunscreen technologies to create high protection formulations with broad spectrum protection, microspheres for enhanced textures, and materials that are derived of natural origin.
Global leader
Symrise’s Cosmetic Ingredients division is a global leader in the beauty solutions market. The Group is capitalizing from over 100 years of experience in developing and marketing cosmetic ingredients and the ability to intertwine the best of nature, science, as well as skin and hair biology. With a portfolio ranging from advanced actives and botanicals, market-leading product protection solutions, broad range of sun care filters to high-performance functionals and special colour solutions, Symrise sees a wide range of possibilities to jointly explore additional growth opportunities together with Kobo. Both groups will, for example, cooperate in the distribution of UV filters and Kobo can capitalise on Symrise’s global sales infrastructure.
President of Kobo since inception, David Schlossman, says: “Joining forces with Symrise offers us an opportunity to further develop our colour and sun businesses. Both companies share similar values regarding employee health and their well-being. Symrise’s resources and expertise in organic UV filters combined with ours in inorganic UV filters will create an organization with the capacity to analyse and develop novel ingredients and formulations that provide broad spectrum protection, are safer for the environment, and that minimize in their impact on carbon emissions. Together, we will do the research necessary to create technical colour and sun care products that are responsive to the needs of customers, regulators, and other stakeholders around the world.”
The financial details of the investments were not disclosed.
