New Body Shop owner lines up financing as rescue deal looms

The new owners of The Body Shop are lining up tens of millions of pounds in new financing as they finalise a deal to buy the chain out of administration.

Sky News has learnt that Aurea, an investment company led by Mike Jatania, a cosmetics entrepreneur, is in advanced talks to secure more than £30m in working capital from Hilco Capital, a prolific investor in and lender to the retail industry.

Banking sources said that the deal between Aurea and FRP Advisory, The Body Shop’s administrators, was likely to be finalised within days.

If confirmed, the new debt from Hilco would be used to help place the cosmetics chain back on a growth footing, the bankers said.

Hilco is a regular bidder for and financier to retailers, having recently lent money to Superdry and sold a parcel of stores operated by Homebase, which it owns.

FRP, Aurea and Hilco all declined to comment.

An auction of The Body Shop was launched earlier this year after FRP concluded that an alternative restructuring of one of Britain’s best-known high street retailers was not viable.

The Body Shop now trades from roughly 100 stores following a shop closure and redundancy programme undertaken since its collapse into insolvency.

The company’s administration underlined the decline of a high street stalwart founded by the late Dame Anita Roddick and her husband Gordon half a century ago.

It has had a string of owners including Natura & Co, a Brazilian company which was reported to have paid more than $1bn to buy it in 2017.

Aurelius, an investment firm, owned The Body Shop for a matter of weeks before discovering that its financial position was worse than anticipated.