The Body Shop was founded by Anita Roddick in Brighton in 1976 and became a pioneer of ethical cosmetics, selling body care, skincare and fragrances such as White Musk against a backdrop of campaigning branding. The family sold it to L'Oréal for £652 million in 2006; L'Oréal passed it to Brazil's Natura, whose 2019 purchase of Avon left the group heavily in debt.
In November 2023 Natura sold The Body Shop to Aurelius, a German private equity firm, for £207 million. Less than three months later, on 13 February 2024, the UK business was in administration. Aurelius said trading over Christmas had been worse than its worst-case assumptions; the administrators, FRP Advisory, spoke of an extended period of financial difficulty under previous owners and a tough retail market.
The Body Shop employed around 2,200 people in the UK and ran 198 stores. Up to half of those stores were earmarked for closure, the head office was cut by roughly 40 percent, and the Body Shop at Home consultant service was shut down. It was described as the first major UK retail failure of the year. The Canadian subsidiary filed for creditor protection on March 1, 2024, closing 33 of its 105 stores, though it continued operating with 64 stores as a restructured Canadian business. The brand was later rescued out of administration, with about 113 stores continuing under new ownership.
The Body Shop went into administration less than three months after Aurelius bought it for £207 million, putting around 2,200 UK jobs and 198 stores at risk.
The brand changed hands four times in under two decades, and no owner solved the core problem: an ethical pitch that competitors had long since copied
Natura's debt from buying Avon forced a sale, and Aurelius paid £207M for a business whose trading was already deteriorating
A heavy UK store estate met falling footfall and rising rents, with the highest-overhead London shops closing first
A dismal Christmas pushed the new owner to act within three months, leaving no runway for a turnaround
Being first with an idea is not a moat. Once every competitor adopts your ethics, the brand has to win on product and price too — or a chain of owners ends with one who paid too much, too late.
FRP Advisory kept the business trading while it sought a buyer. By September 2024 the brand had been rescued out of administration by the investment firm Aurea, with roughly 113 of the 198 UK stores continuing to trade and 82 closed for good. The global franchises in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the rest of Europe were not part of the UK administration.
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