Revlon's New CEO To Set Out Plans For Turnaround

Former Colgate-Palmolive executive Fabian Garcia, the new Revlon CEO, will soon lay out his approach to reigniting the company, with management restructuring, bringing outsourced processes back in-house, and returning to China. Investors were not happy when he was unveiled last year. They had hoped Revlon would be sold after years of failure by successive CEOs to turn the company around. Last fall, Revlon acquired Elizabeth Arden for US$420 million, adding fragrances and skincare products to the Revlon portfolio dominated by color cosmetics, and expanding its geographic reach. With combined annual sales of around $US3 billion, its debt burden is heavy, having borrowed $US2.6bn for the acquisition and to refinance the combined company’s existing debt. Some 350 jobs are expected to go by 2020, but sales have been rising and were up 3.1 percent on a pro forma basis for the first nine months of last year. However, Revlon has still been losing market share.