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Symrise to Acquire Minority Share in Kobo Products

Published September 8, 2021
Published September 8, 2021
Symrise

The Swiss fragrance and flavors supplier Symrise AG is taking a 25 percent stake in Kobo Products Inc., a pigment and powder specialist for the beauty industry.

WHO: Incorporated in New Jersey in 1987 and headquartered in South Plainfield, NJ, Kobo Products is a pigment and powder specialist, providing innovative, technology-based raw materials to the cosmetic industry. Kobo has a very large color palette of surface-treated pigments and dispersions to supply the market demand for makeup products for a wide range of skin tones. It's a market leader in mineral sunscreen technologies to create high-protection formulations with broad-spectrum protection, microspheres for enhanced textures, and materials that are derived of natural origin.

Symrise is a leading global supplier of fragrances, flavors, food, nutrition, and cosmetic ingredients with sales of €3.5 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. Headquartered in Holzminden, Germany, the Group is represented by more than 100 locations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the United States, and Latin America. Symrise works with its clients to develop new ideas and market-ready concepts.

WHY: The investment in the pigment and powder specialist will accelerate Symrise's global growth strategy in cosmetic ingredients.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: "With this investment, we fast-track our strategic plan to expand into decorative cosmetics. It enables us to stay at the forefront of consumer trends by bridging color and skin care cosmetics," said Jörn Andreas, president of the Cosmetics Ingredients Division at Symrise, in a statement. "We will combine Kobo's broad range of market-leading product lines in surface treated pigments, sun care and color dispersions with our decades of experience in manufacturing and marketing high-quality cosmetics ingredients."

“Joining forces with Symrise offers us an opportunity to further develop our color and sun business," said David Schlossman, President of Kobo. "Symrise's resources and expertise in organic UV filters combined with ours in inorganic UV filters will create an organization with a capacity to analyze and develop novel ingredients and formulations that provide broad spectrum protection, are safer for the environment and that minimize in their impact on carbon emissions. Together, we will do the research necessary to create technical color and sun care products that are responsive to the need of customers, regulators and other stakeholders around the world.”

DETAILS:

  • Symrise AG is taking a 25% stake in Kobo Products Inc.
  • The deal's financial terms were not disclosed, but Symrise said it has agreed with Kobo on the future disposition of shares in the group's capital and its governance.
  • Symrise will also become a distribution partner with Kobo for inorganic UV filters.
  • Kobo has group companies in the USA, France, Brazil, and the UK, and a majority-owned joint venture in Japan.
  • The company is represented globally by independent agents in more than 30 countries.
  • The company has application labs and manufactures its products in four countries, employing approximately 170 people worldwide.
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