Florence Nightingale Graham (December 31, 1884 – October 18, 1966), who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden, was a Canadian businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world.
Elizabeth Arden, Inc. is a global beauty products company that sells fragrances, skin care and cosmetic products to retailers in the United States and approximately 100 countries internationally. The Company’s products include the Elizabeth Arden fragrances: Red Door, Elizabeth Arden 5th Avenue, Elizabeth Arden green tea, and Pretty Elizabeth Arden; the Elizabeth Arden skin care brands: Ceramide, Eight Hour Cream, Intervene and PREVAGE, and the Elizabeth Arden branded lipstick, foundation and other color cosmetics products. As of June 30, 2010, the Company’s operations were organized into three segments: North America Fragrance, International and Other. Its fragrance portfolio includes celebrity, lifestyle and designer fragrances. Celebrity Fragrances includes the fragrance brands of Britney Spears, Elizabeth Taylor, Mariah Carey and Usher. Lifestyle Fragrances consists of Curve, Giorgio Beverly Hills, PS Fine Cologne and White Shoulders. Designer Fragrances consists of Juicy Couture, Kate Spade New York, John Varvatos, Rocawear, Alberta Ferretti, Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Badgley Mischka, Alfred Sung, Bob Mackie, and Lucky. In addition to its owned and licensed fragrance brands, it distributes approximately 300 additional fragrance brands, primarily in the United States, through distribution agreements and other purchasing arrangements.
Elizabeth Arden, Inc. sells its beauty products to retailers and other outlets in the United States and internationally, including the United States department stores, such as Macy’s, Dillard’s, Belk, Saks, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom; the United States mass retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Sears, Walgreens, CVS, and Marmaxx, and International retailers, such as Boots, Debenhams, Ulta, Sephora, Marionnaud, Hudson’s Bay, Shoppers Drug Mart, Myer, Douglas and various travel retail outlets, such as Nuance, Heinemann and World Duty Free. In the United States, it sells its Elizabeth Arden skin care and cosmetics products primarily in department stores and its fragrances in department stores and mass retailers. The Company also sells its Elizabeth Arden fragrances, skin care and cosmetics products and other fragrance lines in approximately 100 countries worldwide through perfumeries, boutiques, department stores and travel retail outlets, such as duty free shops and airport boutiques, and on the Internet.
Elizabeth Arden, Inc’s North America Fragrance segment sells its portfolio of owned, licensed and distributed fragrances to department stores, mass retailers and distributors in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. This segment also sells its Elizabeth Arden products in department stores in Canada and Puerto Rico, and to other selected retailers. This segment also includes its direct to consumer business, which is comprised of its Elizabeth Arden branded retail stores and global e-commerce business.
The Company’s International segment sells its portfolio of owned and licensed brands. It includes its Elizabeth Arden branded products, in approximately 100 countries outside of North America through perfumeries, boutiques, department stores and travel retail outlets worldwide. The Company’s Other reportable segment sells its Elizabeth Arden products in department stores in the United States and through the Red Door beauty salons. These stores are owned and operated by an unrelated third party that licenses the Elizabeth Arden and Red Door trademarks from us for use in its salons.
Fragrance
The Company offers a variety of fragrance products for both men and women, including perfume, colognes, eau de toilettes, eau de parfums, body sprays and gift sets. Its fragrances are classified into the Elizabeth Arden branded fragrances, celebrity branded fragrances, designer branded fragrances, and lifestyle fragrances. Each fragrance is sold in a variety of sizes and packaging assortments. In addition, it sells bath and body products that are based on the particular fragrance to complement the fragrance lines, such as soaps, deodorants, body lotions, gels, creams and dusting powders. It sells fragrance products worldwide, primarily to department stores, mass retailers, perfumeries, boutiques, distributors and travel retail outlets.
Skin Care
Elizabeth Arden, Inc’s skin care lines are sold under the Elizabeth Arden name and include products, such as moisturizers, creams, lotions and cleansers. Its core Elizabeth Arden branded products include Ceramide, PREVAGE, Eight Hour Cream, and Intervene. Its Ceramide skin care line targets women who are 40 and over. PREVAGE is its premium cosmeceutical skin care line. It sells skin care products worldwide, primarily in department and specialty stores, perfumeries and travel retail outlets.
Cosmetics
The Company offers a variety of cosmetics under the Elizabeth Arden name, including foundations, lipsticks, mascaras, eye shadows and powders. It offers these products in a range of shades and colors. The largest component of its cosmetics business is foundations, which it markets in conjunction with its Ceramide and Intervene skin care products. It sells its cosmetics internationally and in the United States, primarily in department and specialty stores, perfumeries and travel retail outlets.
A steady stream of products was marketed in the initial years of Elizabeth Arden's business, including rouges and fragrant, tinted powders that she taught her "girls" to apply with subtlety and finesse. In 1914, on the eve of the outbreak of World War I, Elizabeth traveled to Paris, her first trip abroad. During her summer-long sojourn, Elizabeth became acquainted with the more sophisticated Parisian techniques of beauty culture and makeup application. She brought these techniques back with her, in addition to the cosmetic products, including the eye makeup worn by wealthy dames of Paris society. Though chemists improved on the products, Elizabeth found it difficult to convince her clients to apply it--eye makeup for many was going too far. It was America's entry into the First World War, however, that provided the necessary catalyst. While the men were away at war, women found themselves employed in many lines of work formerly closed to them, and as they gained even greater independence, many of the restrictive taboos became outdated. Women began experimenting with Elizabeth Arden's eye makeup, the first to be introduced in the United States.
Elizabeth Arden's Venetian line of cosmetics along with her velvety Cream Amoretta--in her signature chic bottling--were being sold in department stores all over the east coast, and her salon with the famous red door was duplicated in Washington, DC, in 1914, proving an instant success. A year later Arden perfumes were introduced, further expanding the line of products offered in the salons. However, her reign as undisputed queen of cosmetics was not due to last. After the war, competition came to the fore, marking the beginning of the lifelong personal animosity between Elizabeth Arden and her chief rival, Helena Rubenstein. The cosmetics industry began growing at a rapid pace and became steadily more lucrative, especially to women, for whom it was one of the few lines of business in which they could rise to the top and be leaders.
However, Elizabeth Arden was, more often than not, the industry standard bearer. By the start of World War II in Europe, there were dozens of Elizabeth Arden salons all over the world, and hundreds of products being marketed, including soaps, bath salts, even toothpaste, as well as perfumes to go with either morning, afternoon or evening dress. No one advertised cosmetics as frequently nor as lavishly as Elizabeth Arden. This was in accord with her philosophy, held throughout her life, that in order to make money, one had to spend it. Meanwhile American women were in fact spending six million dollars annually on cosmetics by 1925, barely fifteen years after Elizabeth Arden had hung up her shingle. That year her company reaped over two million dollars in sales, a figure that doubled only four years later.
During the Depression, Elizabeth Arden predicted--and advertised accordingly--that the American woman would not stint on beauty. Unlike most American businesses, Elizabeth Arden's company earned handsome profits during those years, even making strides with innovative lipsticks which, until 1932, had come in only a few basic shades. Elizabeth Arden believed that just as perfume should go with the costume, so too should lipstick. Her "lipstick kit" containing several different shades was a big hit at the height of the Depression, creating a sensation in the industry as competitors scrambled to imitate the concept. Then in 1934 she established her extremely successful "beauty spa" in Maine--another was opened in Arizona in 1946--where women shed excess pounds and immersed themselves in Elizabeth Arden bath salts and after bath lotions for $500 per week. By the mid-1930s there were 29 Elizabeth Arden salons around the world, while her company manufactured and marketed 108 different products.
The outbreak of the Second World War, which spelled a loss of overseas markets and raw materials, did not catch Elizabeth Arden by surprise. Just as she had done before World War I, Elizabeth Arden stocked up on raw materials early, and offset the loss of income from her overseas salons by concentrating on expanding her domestic market. Her products were not only carried in department stores coast to coast, but the war years saw Elizabeth expanding into all of the major drugstore chains of the day. Consequently in 1944, at the height of the war, business at Elizabeth Arden's was booming, and the company remained a pacesetter. A line of clothing was added in the 1950s, and Elizabeth Arden became the first in the industry to target male customers by marketing men's fragrances and opening a "men's boutique."
Elizabeth Arden continued her reign as grande dame of the cosmetics industry until her death in 1966. By then the cosmetics industry in the United States had grown into a multi-billion dollar business, and large corporations were mass producing personal care products that, while lacking in prestige, could be sold at much lower prices. Friends and relatives had urged Elizabeth to sell her profitable business as early as 1929, when a $15 million offer was made. She refused, and no further mention was ever made of selling or merging. However, negotiations for the sale of the company began shortly after her death. Elizabeth Arden Co. was finally acquired in late 1970 by the pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly & Co., which cut costs and instituted streamlined procedures before putting it up for sale again in 1987. The company changed hands twice more until 1990 when it was purchased by the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever PLC. Two years later Unilever established the Prestige Personal Products Group, which included Elizabeth Arden Co. and Calvin Klein.
A constant during these changeovers was Elizabeth Arden's president and CEO, Joseph F. Ronchetti, who had joined the company after Elizabeth's death. In 1986, when the company was still a subsidiary of Eli Lilly, Ronchetti devised a five-year plan to revitalize Elizabeth Arden Co. and make it more competitive. While the budget for advertising--especially targeted at baby boomers--was doubled, more modern packaging and innovative bottling was instituted. Ronchetti stuck with the plan throughout the changes in ownership. By the end of the five years, advertising was conducting an average of 200-300 promotions a month, and research and development had created many pace-setting products, including a line of ultraviolet (UV) sun protection creams and lotions that was distinguished by awards from the Skin Cancer Foundation. In addition, Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds became the number one selling fragrance in 1991 after the famous actress personally introduced the scent in ten U.S. cities. Elizabeth Arden had also become more responsive to its social environment--animal-testing of cosmetics is virtually never done, and considerable donations were made to such causes as AIDS research and child welfare. When Ronchetti was succeeded as president and CEO in 1992 by Robert M. Phillips, Elizabeth Arden Co. had not only profited during the recession, but was one of the fastest growing cosmetics companies in the industry, increasing its sales in one year by 24 percent--three times higher than the industry average.
Unilever's purchase of Elizabeth Arden, coupled with that of Fabergé, Inc. in 1990, made the conglomerate the second-largest cosmetics company in the world. With a distribution network in virtually every country on earth, in addition to state-of-the-art research facilities, Elizabeth Arden Co. stands to benefit from its acquisition by the corporation. Under the helm of Phillips, Elizabeth Arden Co. plans to branch out into new international markets in Asia, the Pacific Rim, as well as eastern Europe, bringing long-deprived consumers there a special blend of beauty.
OVERALL
Beta: 1.44
Market Cap (Mil.): $853.78
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 29.03
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
RDEN.O Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 22.58 32.62 20.41
EPS (TTM): 175.75 -- --
ROI: 6.05 39.27 7.89
ROE: 9.74 60.10 14.34
Statistics:
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Unilever PLC
Incorporated: 1911
Employees: 7,000
Sales: $2.25 billion
SICs: 2844 Toilet Preparations; 2841 Soap & Other Detergent
Name Age Since Current Position
Beattie, E. Scott 51 2006 Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer
Smith, Stephen 50 2001 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Heise, L. Hoy 64 2007 Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Widmer, Kathy 48 2009 Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Marina, Oscar 51 2004 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
Ronkin, Joel 42 2010 Executive Vice President, North America
Pirard, Pierre 42 2010 Executive Vice President - Product Innovation and Global Supply Chain
Berens, Fred 67 2009 Lead Independent Director
Thomas, J. W. Nevil 72 2006 Director
Mauran, Richard 76 1992 Director
Tatham, William 51 2001 Director
Clark, Maura 51 2005 Director
Address:
1345 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10105
U.S.A.
Elizabeth Arden, Inc. is a global beauty products company that sells fragrances, skin care and cosmetic products to retailers in the United States and approximately 100 countries internationally. The Company’s products include the Elizabeth Arden fragrances: Red Door, Elizabeth Arden 5th Avenue, Elizabeth Arden green tea, and Pretty Elizabeth Arden; the Elizabeth Arden skin care brands: Ceramide, Eight Hour Cream, Intervene and PREVAGE, and the Elizabeth Arden branded lipstick, foundation and other color cosmetics products. As of June 30, 2010, the Company’s operations were organized into three segments: North America Fragrance, International and Other. Its fragrance portfolio includes celebrity, lifestyle and designer fragrances. Celebrity Fragrances includes the fragrance brands of Britney Spears, Elizabeth Taylor, Mariah Carey and Usher. Lifestyle Fragrances consists of Curve, Giorgio Beverly Hills, PS Fine Cologne and White Shoulders. Designer Fragrances consists of Juicy Couture, Kate Spade New York, John Varvatos, Rocawear, Alberta Ferretti, Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Badgley Mischka, Alfred Sung, Bob Mackie, and Lucky. In addition to its owned and licensed fragrance brands, it distributes approximately 300 additional fragrance brands, primarily in the United States, through distribution agreements and other purchasing arrangements.
Elizabeth Arden, Inc. sells its beauty products to retailers and other outlets in the United States and internationally, including the United States department stores, such as Macy’s, Dillard’s, Belk, Saks, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom; the United States mass retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Sears, Walgreens, CVS, and Marmaxx, and International retailers, such as Boots, Debenhams, Ulta, Sephora, Marionnaud, Hudson’s Bay, Shoppers Drug Mart, Myer, Douglas and various travel retail outlets, such as Nuance, Heinemann and World Duty Free. In the United States, it sells its Elizabeth Arden skin care and cosmetics products primarily in department stores and its fragrances in department stores and mass retailers. The Company also sells its Elizabeth Arden fragrances, skin care and cosmetics products and other fragrance lines in approximately 100 countries worldwide through perfumeries, boutiques, department stores and travel retail outlets, such as duty free shops and airport boutiques, and on the Internet.
Elizabeth Arden, Inc’s North America Fragrance segment sells its portfolio of owned, licensed and distributed fragrances to department stores, mass retailers and distributors in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. This segment also sells its Elizabeth Arden products in department stores in Canada and Puerto Rico, and to other selected retailers. This segment also includes its direct to consumer business, which is comprised of its Elizabeth Arden branded retail stores and global e-commerce business.
The Company’s International segment sells its portfolio of owned and licensed brands. It includes its Elizabeth Arden branded products, in approximately 100 countries outside of North America through perfumeries, boutiques, department stores and travel retail outlets worldwide. The Company’s Other reportable segment sells its Elizabeth Arden products in department stores in the United States and through the Red Door beauty salons. These stores are owned and operated by an unrelated third party that licenses the Elizabeth Arden and Red Door trademarks from us for use in its salons.
Fragrance
The Company offers a variety of fragrance products for both men and women, including perfume, colognes, eau de toilettes, eau de parfums, body sprays and gift sets. Its fragrances are classified into the Elizabeth Arden branded fragrances, celebrity branded fragrances, designer branded fragrances, and lifestyle fragrances. Each fragrance is sold in a variety of sizes and packaging assortments. In addition, it sells bath and body products that are based on the particular fragrance to complement the fragrance lines, such as soaps, deodorants, body lotions, gels, creams and dusting powders. It sells fragrance products worldwide, primarily to department stores, mass retailers, perfumeries, boutiques, distributors and travel retail outlets.
Skin Care
Elizabeth Arden, Inc’s skin care lines are sold under the Elizabeth Arden name and include products, such as moisturizers, creams, lotions and cleansers. Its core Elizabeth Arden branded products include Ceramide, PREVAGE, Eight Hour Cream, and Intervene. Its Ceramide skin care line targets women who are 40 and over. PREVAGE is its premium cosmeceutical skin care line. It sells skin care products worldwide, primarily in department and specialty stores, perfumeries and travel retail outlets.
Cosmetics
The Company offers a variety of cosmetics under the Elizabeth Arden name, including foundations, lipsticks, mascaras, eye shadows and powders. It offers these products in a range of shades and colors. The largest component of its cosmetics business is foundations, which it markets in conjunction with its Ceramide and Intervene skin care products. It sells its cosmetics internationally and in the United States, primarily in department and specialty stores, perfumeries and travel retail outlets.
A steady stream of products was marketed in the initial years of Elizabeth Arden's business, including rouges and fragrant, tinted powders that she taught her "girls" to apply with subtlety and finesse. In 1914, on the eve of the outbreak of World War I, Elizabeth traveled to Paris, her first trip abroad. During her summer-long sojourn, Elizabeth became acquainted with the more sophisticated Parisian techniques of beauty culture and makeup application. She brought these techniques back with her, in addition to the cosmetic products, including the eye makeup worn by wealthy dames of Paris society. Though chemists improved on the products, Elizabeth found it difficult to convince her clients to apply it--eye makeup for many was going too far. It was America's entry into the First World War, however, that provided the necessary catalyst. While the men were away at war, women found themselves employed in many lines of work formerly closed to them, and as they gained even greater independence, many of the restrictive taboos became outdated. Women began experimenting with Elizabeth Arden's eye makeup, the first to be introduced in the United States.
Elizabeth Arden's Venetian line of cosmetics along with her velvety Cream Amoretta--in her signature chic bottling--were being sold in department stores all over the east coast, and her salon with the famous red door was duplicated in Washington, DC, in 1914, proving an instant success. A year later Arden perfumes were introduced, further expanding the line of products offered in the salons. However, her reign as undisputed queen of cosmetics was not due to last. After the war, competition came to the fore, marking the beginning of the lifelong personal animosity between Elizabeth Arden and her chief rival, Helena Rubenstein. The cosmetics industry began growing at a rapid pace and became steadily more lucrative, especially to women, for whom it was one of the few lines of business in which they could rise to the top and be leaders.
However, Elizabeth Arden was, more often than not, the industry standard bearer. By the start of World War II in Europe, there were dozens of Elizabeth Arden salons all over the world, and hundreds of products being marketed, including soaps, bath salts, even toothpaste, as well as perfumes to go with either morning, afternoon or evening dress. No one advertised cosmetics as frequently nor as lavishly as Elizabeth Arden. This was in accord with her philosophy, held throughout her life, that in order to make money, one had to spend it. Meanwhile American women were in fact spending six million dollars annually on cosmetics by 1925, barely fifteen years after Elizabeth Arden had hung up her shingle. That year her company reaped over two million dollars in sales, a figure that doubled only four years later.
During the Depression, Elizabeth Arden predicted--and advertised accordingly--that the American woman would not stint on beauty. Unlike most American businesses, Elizabeth Arden's company earned handsome profits during those years, even making strides with innovative lipsticks which, until 1932, had come in only a few basic shades. Elizabeth Arden believed that just as perfume should go with the costume, so too should lipstick. Her "lipstick kit" containing several different shades was a big hit at the height of the Depression, creating a sensation in the industry as competitors scrambled to imitate the concept. Then in 1934 she established her extremely successful "beauty spa" in Maine--another was opened in Arizona in 1946--where women shed excess pounds and immersed themselves in Elizabeth Arden bath salts and after bath lotions for $500 per week. By the mid-1930s there were 29 Elizabeth Arden salons around the world, while her company manufactured and marketed 108 different products.
The outbreak of the Second World War, which spelled a loss of overseas markets and raw materials, did not catch Elizabeth Arden by surprise. Just as she had done before World War I, Elizabeth Arden stocked up on raw materials early, and offset the loss of income from her overseas salons by concentrating on expanding her domestic market. Her products were not only carried in department stores coast to coast, but the war years saw Elizabeth expanding into all of the major drugstore chains of the day. Consequently in 1944, at the height of the war, business at Elizabeth Arden's was booming, and the company remained a pacesetter. A line of clothing was added in the 1950s, and Elizabeth Arden became the first in the industry to target male customers by marketing men's fragrances and opening a "men's boutique."
Elizabeth Arden continued her reign as grande dame of the cosmetics industry until her death in 1966. By then the cosmetics industry in the United States had grown into a multi-billion dollar business, and large corporations were mass producing personal care products that, while lacking in prestige, could be sold at much lower prices. Friends and relatives had urged Elizabeth to sell her profitable business as early as 1929, when a $15 million offer was made. She refused, and no further mention was ever made of selling or merging. However, negotiations for the sale of the company began shortly after her death. Elizabeth Arden Co. was finally acquired in late 1970 by the pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly & Co., which cut costs and instituted streamlined procedures before putting it up for sale again in 1987. The company changed hands twice more until 1990 when it was purchased by the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever PLC. Two years later Unilever established the Prestige Personal Products Group, which included Elizabeth Arden Co. and Calvin Klein.
A constant during these changeovers was Elizabeth Arden's president and CEO, Joseph F. Ronchetti, who had joined the company after Elizabeth's death. In 1986, when the company was still a subsidiary of Eli Lilly, Ronchetti devised a five-year plan to revitalize Elizabeth Arden Co. and make it more competitive. While the budget for advertising--especially targeted at baby boomers--was doubled, more modern packaging and innovative bottling was instituted. Ronchetti stuck with the plan throughout the changes in ownership. By the end of the five years, advertising was conducting an average of 200-300 promotions a month, and research and development had created many pace-setting products, including a line of ultraviolet (UV) sun protection creams and lotions that was distinguished by awards from the Skin Cancer Foundation. In addition, Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds became the number one selling fragrance in 1991 after the famous actress personally introduced the scent in ten U.S. cities. Elizabeth Arden had also become more responsive to its social environment--animal-testing of cosmetics is virtually never done, and considerable donations were made to such causes as AIDS research and child welfare. When Ronchetti was succeeded as president and CEO in 1992 by Robert M. Phillips, Elizabeth Arden Co. had not only profited during the recession, but was one of the fastest growing cosmetics companies in the industry, increasing its sales in one year by 24 percent--three times higher than the industry average.
Unilever's purchase of Elizabeth Arden, coupled with that of Fabergé, Inc. in 1990, made the conglomerate the second-largest cosmetics company in the world. With a distribution network in virtually every country on earth, in addition to state-of-the-art research facilities, Elizabeth Arden Co. stands to benefit from its acquisition by the corporation. Under the helm of Phillips, Elizabeth Arden Co. plans to branch out into new international markets in Asia, the Pacific Rim, as well as eastern Europe, bringing long-deprived consumers there a special blend of beauty.
OVERALL
Beta: 1.44
Market Cap (Mil.): $853.78
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 29.03
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
RDEN.O Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 22.58 32.62 20.41
EPS (TTM): 175.75 -- --
ROI: 6.05 39.27 7.89
ROE: 9.74 60.10 14.34
Statistics:
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Unilever PLC
Incorporated: 1911
Employees: 7,000
Sales: $2.25 billion
SICs: 2844 Toilet Preparations; 2841 Soap & Other Detergent
Name Age Since Current Position
Beattie, E. Scott 51 2006 Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer
Smith, Stephen 50 2001 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Heise, L. Hoy 64 2007 Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Widmer, Kathy 48 2009 Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Marina, Oscar 51 2004 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
Ronkin, Joel 42 2010 Executive Vice President, North America
Pirard, Pierre 42 2010 Executive Vice President - Product Innovation and Global Supply Chain
Berens, Fred 67 2009 Lead Independent Director
Thomas, J. W. Nevil 72 2006 Director
Mauran, Richard 76 1992 Director
Tatham, William 51 2001 Director
Clark, Maura 51 2005 Director
Address:
1345 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10105
U.S.A.
Last edited: