L’Oréal H1 profit hurt by writedowns | Progresiv
L’Oréal has incurred a strong impact to its first half profit figures, due to impairment charges related to two acquisitions. 
The cosmetics giant took a 447 million euros charge in the half, which included 213 million euros writedown on Chinese group Magic Holdings and a 234 million euros writedown for Clarisonic. It did not provide details of their financial performance.
Those charges meant the operating profit rose by just 1.7% to 2.36 billion euros, while gross profit grew by 1.6% to 9.33 billion euros. Meanwhile, sales were up 4.5% to 12.9 billion euros on a constant-currency basis (+0.6% reported).
Sales at its Professional Products division were up 2.2% to 1.72 billion euros on a like-for-like basis (-0.6% reported), the Consumer Products division reported a 4.3% increase to 6.15 billion euros (-0.1% reported), the Luxe division saw sales grow by 5.6% to 3.6 billion euros (+3.1% reported), while the Active Cosmetics division generated a 5% increase to 1 billion euros (+0.3% reported).
L’Oreal said it continued to face tough conditions in Western Europe due to a “very difficult market in France”, but noted that growth was accelerating in North America. It also continued to do well in emerging markets, with Latin America and the Africa & Middle East regions showing particularly strong growth. (www.kamcity.com)
