Still Body Shopping Around

Body Shop, the U.K-based health and beauty products retailer, is the subject of further takeover speculation. The latest report has Paribas Affaires Industrielles – the French investment company that is part of BNP Paribas, the French bank – offering roughly $250 million for the international company, though the final figure is said to depend on Body Shop's performance during the holiday shopping season.

The main rival for Body Shop appears to be Texas Pacific Group (Fort Worth), owner of the J. Crew Group. A deal is expected by early January 2002.

Body Shop, which began in the U.K. 1976 with a $5600 loan by Anita and T. Gordon Roddick, has grown into an international empire of 1750 stores (most of them franchised) in 50 countries. The retailer became known as much for its social conscience as for its retail success. It has promoted recycling, shunned animal testing, promised natural ingredients and invested in social and environmental causes. But its business has slowly been surpassed – in the U.S. by Intimate Brands'Bath & Body works and in the U.K. by Boots, the British drugstore chain.

The Roddicks still own about 25 percent of the company, but have not had operating control since the board of directors replaced Anita Roddick as ceo in 1998.

Earlier this year, Grupo Omnilife out of Mexico called off its bid for Body Shop, and the Roddicks rejected a $250 million offer from British-based rival Lush.