Seeking change on a bigger business stage
Late on Thursday night, as the dealmakers were putting the finishing touches to L'Oréal's ￡652m agreed bid for Body Shop International, Dame Anita Roddick turned to one of her advisers and said: "I have spent my life trying to change the beauty industry from the outside. Now I can change it from within."
An advocate of animal rights, fair trade and local farming, Dame Anita built the Body Shop in her own image, giving it a self-consciously "ethical" positioning that chimed remarkably well with changing consumer behaviour in the late 20th century.
Now, 30 years after the company was founded in Brighton - and just three years after she claimed that L'Oréal was part of a beauty industry conspiracy to make women feel insecure - Dame Anita says a takeover by the world's biggest cosmetics manufacturer will allow Body Shop to take its niche philosophy to a wider audience.
She is not the first socially minded entrepreneur toreconcile herself to big business. Ben & Jerry's, thehippyish ice cream maker, was in 2000 sold to Unilever, the only-slightly-less-earnest consumer goods multinational, while Green & Black's, the organic chocolate maker, was last year bought by Cadbury Schweppes, the food group that still bears the philanthropic imprint of its Quaker founders.
However, while these deals built on subtle commonalities between buyer and bought, the similarities between L'Oréal and Body Shop are harder to see.
L'Oréal, for its part, is the kind of company that loathes being seen in public without its make-up on.
Encounters with the press tend to be rather stage-managed while interviews with Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, its British chairman and chief executive, are relatively rare occurrences, in spite of his formidable charisma.
The French group's desire to appear at all times poised and slightly aloof reflects the idea of beauty that it peddles. Unilever - which would have been a more obvious spiritual home for Body Shop - might choose to celebrate womanly curves in its adverts for Dove cosmetics. But L'Oréal's approach to looking good tends to be steelier, more angular, more aspirational. And, it must be added, more successful.
If L'Oréal is the spiritual twin of the woman who burns off calories on a Stairmaster while wearing full war paint, Body Shop still has more in common with the straggle-haired stalwart of the church hall yoga class. Its products are comfort eating for the skin: coconut body butter; peppermint foot lotion; almond oil intensive hand rescue; papaya body scrub.
Yet that is not to say that Dame Anita will not be able to find a happy partnership with Sir Lindsay and Jean-Paul Agon, the Frenchman who will succeed him in April as chief executive and who has already signalled his intention to accelerate sales growth - by unconventional means if necessary.
As part of the deal, Dame Anita will take on a role of community trade councillor to L'Oréal, helping the company to pursue fair trade initiatives across all of its brands.
She will also remain a consultant to Body Shop, ensuring that L'Oréal maintains the brand's core values of shunning animal testing (L'Oréal stopped testing its products on animals in 1989 and says it is looking for alternatives to the testing of chemical ingredients on animals), while supporting fair trade, protecting the environment and defending human rights.
Surrounded by executives, bankers and advisers at a press conference to announce the deal yesterday, Dame Anita highlighted ways in which the two groups could together encourage grass roots commerce in poorer countries.
"It is hard when you give birth to something to give it away. The City always thinks of profit and loss but this [deal] was about values - and not just animal testing, but community trade.
"When you have the biggest cosmetics firm saying 'we want you to teach us how to support small farms and women's co-operatives', it is a very exciting moment. You are never remembered by what you do in business - it is what you do within civil society."
In a separate interview, prepared and distributed on behalf of Body Shop itself, she described the potential for collaboration on developing world projects as "amazing".
"They [L'Oréal] could work with our Nicaraguan farmers who sell us 70 tons of sesame oil. How many tons could they use, a thousand? I mean it's mind-blowing in terms of poverty eradication."
Body Shop will be "ringfenced" and remain "an independent business", Sir Lindsay stressed.
Jobs will not be lost and the management team will stay the same.
Asked how the deal would enhance his own company's performance, Sir Lindsay refused to set out any targets on margins, sales and growth.
"We have a track record with other brands. Rather than giving precise examples about a business, which we still have to learn a great deal about, look at what we have done with other brands we have acquired."
He added: "We will be working on improving everything within the Body Shop. I offered a high price for this business because it is doing pretty well."
There is a precedent for L'Oréal digesting a retailer and manufacturer with a fairly similar position in the market to Body Shop.
In 2000, it bought Kiehl's, a small cosmetics company that grew out of a 19th century apothecary in New York, and has been expanding the business since the takeover.
Its success with the Maybelline make-up brand - particularly in China - is further evidence of its ability successfully to internationalise a bought business in ways that might not have been immediately apparent at the time of the takeover.
In the meantime, Sir Lindsay and Mr Agon can amuse themselves by keeping an eye on Dame Anita's website,
www.anitaroddick.com.There, for all to see, their new partner lambasts the "greed and manipulation" of the Bush administration and, rather more embarrassingly for L'Oréal, heaps praise on the current "real beauty" advertising campaign by none other than those curve-loving beatniks at Unilever's Dove brand.
Body Shop能否“保持本色”
上周四夜间，当交易双方最终敲定欧莱雅(L’Oréal)以6.52亿英镑的协议出价，收购Body Shop International时，安妮塔?罗迪克女爵(Dame Anita Roddick)转头对她的一名顾问说：“我一生都致力于从外部改变美容行业。现在，我可以从内部改变它了。”
作为一名动物权益、公平贸易和当地农业的倡导者，安妮塔女爵按照她自己的理念，创建了Body Shop，赋予它一种自觉的“道德”定位，与20世纪末的消费者行为极为合拍。
而今，在这家公司于英国布莱顿创建30年之后，安妮塔女爵表示，被全球最大的化妆品制造商收购，将有助于Body Shop向更多受众传播自己的理念――而就在3年前，安妮塔女爵还曾宣称，欧莱雅参与了美容行业的一场阴谋，让女性产生不安全感。
她并非首位甘心屈从于大企业的有社会良知的企业家。2000年，嬉皮士风格的冰淇淋制造商Ben & Jerry’s，被卖给了联合利华(Unilever)这家跨国消费品公司；而有机巧克力制造商Green & Black’s，则在去年被食品集团吉百利史威士(Cadbury Schweppes)收购，吉百利史威士目前仍保留着其贵格会(Quaker)创始人的慈善印记。
买卖双方相似之处较难发现
上述交易固然建立在买卖双方微妙的共同点基础上，但欧莱雅和Body Shop之间的相似之处却较难发现。
欧莱雅是那样一种公司：讨厌在没有装扮的情况下出现在公众面前。
该公司在媒体上露面往往是经过精心策划的，其英籍董事长兼首席执行官欧文中(Lindsay Owen-Jones)爵士有着超凡的魅力，却很少接受采访。
这家法国集团希望在任何时候都显得泰然自若，并略显冷淡，这反映了该公司所推崇的“美”的理念。联合利华――它显然更像是Body Shop的精神家园――也许会选择女人味十足的卷发为多芬(Dove)化妆品做广告。但是，欧莱雅让女人好看的方式则更酷、更有棱角，也更富于憧憬，还要更为成功。
产品像是可口食物
如果说，欧莱雅从精神上更贴近那些面着浓妆、在Stairmaster健身器材上燃烧卡路里的女人们，那么，Body Shop还是与那些头发有些散乱、坚持在教堂里上瑜珈课的女人们有着更多的共同点。对于皮肤而言，Body Shop的产品像是可口的食物：椰果润肤乳液、薄荷润足乳液、杏仁油特效护手霜、木瓜护体磨砂膏。
然而，那并不是说，安妮塔女爵就将无法与欧文中和让―保罗?阿贡(Jean-Paul Agon)合作愉快。法国人阿贡将于今年4月接替欧文中的首席执行官职务，他已经表示，有意提高销售增长速度――如果必要的话，将采取非传统方式。
作为协议的一部分，安妮塔女爵将担任欧莱雅的社区贸易顾问(community trade councillor)，帮助该公司为其所有品牌寻求公平贸易的新途径。
她还将留任Body Shop的顾问，以确保欧莱雅坚持该品牌的核心价值：避免动物实验(欧莱雅于1989年停止在动物身上对其产品进行测试，并表示正寻找其它方法，来替代在动物身上进行化学成分测试的做法)，同时支持公平贸易、保护环境和捍卫人权。
促进贫困国家基层商业
昨日，在宣布此项交易的新闻发布会上，安妮塔女爵在公司高管、银行家和顾问的簇拥下，着重阐述了这两个集团如何共同促进贫困国家基层商业的方式。
“对于你亲手缔造的东西，放弃是十分艰难的事情。伦敦金融城成天考虑的都是盈亏的问题，但这笔交易与价值观有关――不仅包括动物实验，而且包括社区贸易。
“当全球最大的化妆品公司告诉你，‘我们希望您来教会我们，如何扶持小型农场和妇女互助合作社’，那是激动人心的一刻。你永远不会因为生意上的成就而被人记住――只有在民间社会中的贡献才能被铭记。”
在代表Body Shop制作和发布的另外一次专访中， 她将与发展中国家合作项目的潜力描述为“令人惊叹的”。
“欧莱雅可以和我们的尼加拉瓜农民合作。我们曾向这些农民购买了70吨芝麻油。欧莱雅需要多少吨呢？1000吨？我的意思是，就根除贫困而言，这非常令人振奋。”
Body Shop将保持“独立企业”地位
欧文中爵士强调， Body Shop将保持“独立企业”地位，不会裁员，管理团队也将保持原貌。
当被问及该交易将如何提高其公司绩效时，欧文中爵士拒绝为利润率、销量和增长率设置任何目标。
“我们的其它品牌都有成功记录。与其对我们仍将学习良多的业务设定明确指标，不如看看我们对以前收购的其它品牌都做了什么。”
他补充说：“我们将继续改进Body Shop中的一切东西。我高价收购这家公司，原因是它做得非常好。”
欧莱雅以前也曾收购一家与Body Shop市场地位极其相似的零售和制造商。
2000年，欧莱雅收购了诞生于19世纪的Kiehl’s。这是从19世纪纽约一家药剂行发展而来的小型化妆品公司。自收购之后，这家公司的业务已得到发展。
欧莱雅旗下美宝莲(Maybelline)化妆品牌的成功（尤其在中国市场的成功），进一步证明了欧莱雅将一项收购业务成功推向国际市场的能力。不过在收购之初，这种效果可能不会立即显现。
同时，欧文中爵士和阿贡不妨关注安妮塔女爵的网站
www.anitaroddick.com。
在这里，他们的新伙伴严厉谴责了布什政府的“贪婪和操纵行为”。令欧莱雅更感尴尬的是，这个新伙伴还对联合利华当前进行的“真正美丽”(real beauty)广告活动称赞有加――负责此次广告活动的不是别人，正是其多芬品牌旗下那些钟爱卷发的新新人类。
