What merger talks? Puig used its first Capital Markets Day in Madrid on October 28 to unveil “Vision 2032,” a plan to lift net revenue above €8 billion ($8.9 billion) by 2032, up roughly 60% from €5.04 billion ($5.6 billion) in 2025. Neither the press release nor the presentation discusses the failed merger talks with Estée Lauder. By Puig’s own account, the company has never been in better shape. “Today, we are stronger than at any point in our over 110-year history,” said Executive Chairman Marc Puig.
The plan was overdue. Puig shares climbed when the Lauder talks became public in March, then closed down 13.4% on May 22, following the announcement the previous evening that negotiations had ended. By the end of May, shares were 34% below their €24.50 ($27.37) listing price. With a deal off the table, investors were still waiting for Puig to present its next long-term strategy. Its previous five-year plan concluded in 2025, and the Capital Markets Day meant to replace it had been postponed while the company negotiated with Lauder.
CEO José Manuel Albesa, seven months into the role, paired the revenue goal with a target of adjusted EBITDA margins above 22.5%, up from 20.7% in 2025. The more telling ambitions are competitive: Puig wants to become a top four premium beauty company and to be top two in fragrance.
Puig says it will reach €8 billion ($8.9 billion) “primarily through organic growth.” It currently owns 50% of Isdin, and that business isn’t included in its reported revenue. Once Puig closes its purchase of the Esteve family’s 50% stake (expected in the first quarter of 2027), it will consolidate roughly €650 million ($726 million) in annual Isdin sales. Getting from €5.04 billion to €8 billion means growing about 6.8% a year. With Isdin added to the starting base, the required rate drops to roughly 5%.
Puig expects the premium beauty market to grow 4% to 5% annually through 2032. The roughly 5% growth needed after factoring in Isdin looks less conservative against Puig’s current performance: like-for-like growth slowed from 7.8% in 2025 to 4.8% in the first nine months of 2026. That calculation uses Isdin’s 2025 sales; its revenue when the deal closes will differ.
Albesa has acknowledged that the fragrance market is normalizing after several years of outsized growth. “We also see brands turning to different growth strategies, such as promotions, price offers, heavy discounting,” he told WWD in June. “We will not play that game.”
In a May research note reported by Bloomberg, J.P. Morgan analyst Céline Pannuti warned that investor attention would return to Puig’s operating performance as fragrance growth normalized and the Middle East and travel retail faced near-term pressure.
A beatable target may be the smarter move for a management team trying to win back investors.
Isdin is the anchor of the company’s dermocosmetics ambitions. Puig is paying €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) to buy out Esteve’s half of the brand, ending a five-decade partnership between two Catalan families. Alongside Uriage and Apivita, Isdin would give Puig a dermocosmetics business with more than €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in sales, and Puig plans to double Uriage by 2032.
The price raised eyebrows. Analysts at AlphaValue put Isdin’s implied value at about €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion), nearly four times last year’s sales. Revenue was essentially flat in 2025 at €648 million ($725 million) while operating profit fell 27%. Puig is essentially paying for growth Isdin has yet to deliver.
Every priority in Vision 2032 is a business Puig already owns. Albesa wants to double down on prestige fragrance, reinforce niche (the fastest-growing segment in the category), unlock “the full potential” of Charlotte Tilbury, and build a global dermocosmetics “champion,” an approach he described as “concentrating our resources on the categories, markets, and channels where we have the clearest opportunity to win.”
Puig’s own figures point to two gaps in its fragrance business. Feminine scents make up about 65% of the global prestige fragrance market but only around 45% of Puig’s prestige fragrance business. Good Girl, La Bomba, and Jean Paul Gaultier’s new La Favorite are meant to close that gap. In niche, the US accounts for 25% of the global market but just 14% of Puig’s niche business, so Puig brands Byredo and Penhaligon’s will expand there selectively. Travel retail is already working. Since 2021, Puig has moved from sixth to third among fragrance players in the channel, and its share has risen from 9.6% to 13%.
Charlotte Tilbury is expected to reach 1.5 times its current size by 2032, with faster growth in skincare and a bigger push into fragrance from 2028. The founder’s terms were reportedly one of the sticking points in the Estée Lauder talks. Weeks after they collapsed, Puig raised its stake to 85%, buying shares from Tilbury and former CEO Demetra Pinsent, and it aims to own the brand outright by 2031.
Although Puig is often called a beauty conglomerate by media and analysts, that isn’t how the company describes itself. It calls itself a “Home of Creativity” for “Love Brands” within a family company, and that positioning extends to its partnership with Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice and Puig, Home of Creativity, published by Rizzoli.
The company’s image is closer to an artist compound than a global powerhouse.
“We have a distinctive culture and long-term vision rooted in family ownership, professional management, and an identity that we define as a Home of Creativity,” said Marc Puig. He added, “We will continue to be curators of brands, not aggregators, preserving each Love Brand’s identity and creative autonomy while providing access to Puig’s global capabilities and scale.”
The curator line isn’t only about culture. In the investor presentation, “curator of brands, not an aggregator” is listed as the first principle of Puig’s M&A strategy, and Puig has spent more than €4 billion ($4.5 billion) on acquisitions since 2011.
Puig is also scrapping its divisions in favor of a more integrated company. Sharing resources across brands is expected to generate about €80 million ($89 million) in annual value after three years.
If it walks and talks like a conglomerate…
“Puig is not for sale,” Marc Puig told shareholders in May. Now it has to show investors why it’s worth more on its own.
