Alès Groupe took on debt to stay independent — then Lierac and Phyto sold for €13.5M

Alès Groupe began in 1969 as the laboratoires Phytosolba, founded by the hairdresser Patrick Alès to sell plant-based haircare under the Phyto brand in pharmacies. It later added the dermocosmetics brand Lierac, listed on the Paris bourse in 1996, and for two decades also owned the parfums Caron. By the 2010s it was a mainstay of French pharmacy beauty, selling more than half its products abroad.

The trouble was the balance sheet. In 1995 Patrick Alès had bought back L'Oréal's stake mainly with debt, and the group never fully shed the leverage. Losses began in 2012 and deepened after 2016 — three consecutive loss-making years, hurt by weaker pricing, discontinued product lines and lost sales in markets hit by international sanctions. Revenue fell from €244 million in 2015 to €208.6 million in 2019, and the group booked nearly €40 million of losses that year. It sold Caron in 2018 for just under €30 million to raise cash, but it was not enough.

At the end of 2019 a bank covenant broke: the group could not keep its 2019 Ebitda positive, and €89.7 million of debt — a €60 million bond and a €14 million bank loan — became repayable within twelve months. A new chairman, Patrick Puy, was brought in to turn the business around, and the first two months of 2020 grew 4.9 percent. Then Covid-19 closed pharmacy and export channels and revenue fell 20 percent in the first half. Alès Groupe was placed in receivership by the Paris commercial court on 9 July 2020.

On 24 September 2020 the court awarded the cosmetics business — more than 70 percent of the group and 97 of its 102 staff — to Impala, the holding company of Jacques Veyrat, for €13.5 million. The haircare division went to its own managers. The listed holding company itself was put into judicial liquidation on 28 October 2020.