Aussie Adore Beauty buys back 25% stake from Woolworths

By

Benjamin Fitzgerald

Published
Feb 14, 2017

Adore Beauty, the online cosmetic retailer founded by Australian entrepreneur Kate Morris, has bought back the 25% stake it sold to domestic supermarket giant Woolworths back in 2015 for an undisclosed sum.

Morris, founder and chief executive of Adore Beauty, reportedly made the decision to buy the 100 percent stake from Woolworths after realising the seller of skincare and cosmetics was better off pursuing its next phase of growth solo.

Morris told local media that the partnership of two years had helped her business, but Adore and Woolworths were no longer synchronised in terms of priorities. 

“The partnership has been successful and we were able to use Woolworths’ investment to grow the business by about 125 per cent over the past two years,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

“We were able to invest in people, stock and marketing but in terms of it being a long term relationship, you need to have good strategic alignment and while that was there at the start, it probably wasn’t so much a couple years down the track. The best position for the business going forward is to be independent again.”

After entering the Chinese market ten months ago via Tmall, Adore has recently withdrawn, replacing the venture with Borderfree Retail, giving it access to shoppers in more than 200 countries.

The Australian entrepreneur started the company from her garage at the age of 21 in 1999. Adore sold 12,000 beauty products in the past six months, boasts a customer base of 50,000 and is eyeing 60 per cent growth on last year.