After hair care, GCPL to explore beauty market for women of African descent

MUMBAI: Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) will explore the opportunity of serving both hair and beauty needs of women of African descent post acquisition of the US-based Strength of Nature (SON), a leading player in the hair care market catering to this segment of consumers.
The acquisition has catapulted GCPL to become the largest player globally serving the hair care needs for women of African descent.
This market size is understood to be US $4.5 billion.
At a media conference on Saturday, Vivek Gambhir, MD, GCPL, said: ``The idea of serving both the hair care and beauty needs of women of African descent is a very interesting opportunity. We believe this market today is very underserved and fragmented. The focus in the next 3-4 years would be to further consolidate and drive leadership in hair care. Once we have firmed that up, there would be other opportunities as well.''
The acquisition of SON opens up new avenues of growth for GCPL in the African market.
``For us the critical reason for this acquisition was to leverage the African market. By focusing on the 3x3 strategy, we will be able to specifically accelerate our growth tragectory in Africa. But with this acquisition, we also have got an entry into the US market. I think over a period of time, we will evaluate the opportunities for the US market as well,'' said Gambhir.
Post the acquisition of SON, the international business of GCPL would become bigger than the domestic business in India, but the company said India would continue to remain the focus even though the fast-moving consumer goods market had decelerated.
Adi Godrej, chairman, GCPL said the company's debt equity ratio and debt to market capitalisation ratio is very low and this will help the company leverage borrowings for more acquisitions.
The cashflows from SON, said Gambhir, would be sufficient to fund the acquisition.