PZ Cussons not selling St Tropez brand, gives it new strategic direction, strikes US deal with Emerson

Personal care specialist PZ Cussons announced on Thursday that it won’t be selling its St Tropez self-tan brand after all and that it will “set a new strategic direction” for the business.

The company had put the brand up for sale back in April as part of a broader plan to refocus its portfolio. It has since run an “extensive auction process which resulted in a number of offers being received. This has been against a backdrop of a challenging performance for the business, with a revenue decline in FY25 in the US and a wider contraction of valuation multiples across the Beauty category”.

During the time since it went up for sale, PZ Cussons has “explored a number of alternative business models” for St Tropez that it said “could create more value for shareholders. As such, and after careful evaluation of the offers received”, the board has decided to hold on to it and set that new strategic direction.

So what happens now? PZ Cussons will “establish a focused team to lead the St Tropez brand across the group’s international footprint. This team will be incentivised against the identified value drivers of the business: winning in-market execution including digital activation, re-igniting innovation and rejuvenating the brand’s equity”.  

It added that a “critical component of the plan includes the formation of a strategic partnership with The Emerson Group…. a leading, US-based partner to brand owners”.

Emerson is to provide customer management, logistics services and brand activation in the US with St Tropez integrated into its dedicated selling teams to key US retailers. PZ Cussons said this deal builds on its existing relationship with Emerson as the distributor of Childs Farm in the US.

The company said it’s “confident” this will return St Tropez to US growth and “help address the challenge of our sub-scale operations” there. 

There’s clearly a lot of work to do to get St Tropez back to full health and the company added that “reflecting the recent performance of St Tropez, the group expects to record a non-cash impairment with its FY25 results announcement in September. St Tropez contributed £7.5 million of adjusted operating profit in FY25”. We’ll hear further details about that and about its future plans for the brand in September.

PZ Cussons CEO Jonathan Myers said of all this: “Today we are setting a new direction for St Tropez with a renewed operating model built around a focused and incentivised team, a reset of our ‘go to market’ capabilities in the US and proven group operations in our other markets. With these changes, we are confident in the future of the brand as part of the PZ Cussons portfolio.”