Milbank advised Oakley Capital’s portfolio company WindStar Medical GmbH (“WindStar”) on the acquisition of L.A.B Cosmetics GmbH & Co. KG (“L.A.B.”), a leading provider of “clean beauty” products. The founders of L.A.B. are reinvesting in the combined business and will continue to manage L.A.B. in partnership with WindStar. The financial details of the transaction are not disclosed. Partnering with L.A.B. will enable WindStar to enter the highly attractive clean beauty segment, which is forecast to outgrow the $450 billion global beauty and personal care market through 2025. L.A.B’s revenues are expected to more than double in 2021, with strong demand for its innovative, science-led products which are free from additives and are PETA and vegan-approved.
Oakley’s investment and deep expertise in growing consumer platforms, particularly in the DACH region, including Verivox, Parship Elite and, more recently, Wishcard Technologies and 7NXT/Gymondo, will help L.A.B. to further grow its flagship brands, particularly through online channels and in international markets. L.A.B will also benefit from resource-sharing WindStar’s central functions, including regulatory, IT and admin, boosting synergies and supporting the growth of the business.
Karin Hock and Slobodan Vucinic, who founded L.A.B. in 1998, will roll a significant portion of their proceeds into the WindStar platform and will continue to lead L.A.B. into its next stage as joint Managing Directors.
Based in Hamburg, Germany, L.A.B. specialises in the development, fulfilment and marketing of clean beauty cosmetics that are free from harmful chemicals, selling its fast-growing flagship brands Daytox and Beauty Glam via leading European retailers as well as via online direct-to-consumer (‘D2C’) channels and marketplaces.
WindStar is Germany’s leading over-the-counter consumer healthcare company, which designs, develops and commercialises branded consumer health and private label products, with a track record of establishing best-in-class medical formulations and brands. Oakley first invested in the business in October 2020 to support the company’s growth strategy and scale the business through continued product innovation, digitalisation and accretive acquisitions.
The Milbank team that advised Oakley Capital and WindStar on the corporate and tax law aspects of the transaction was led by partner Martin Erhardt (Corporate/M&A, Munich) and included partner Thomas Kleinheisterkamp (Tax, Munich), special counsel Michael Pujol, and associates Andreas Rief (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt), Johannes Rogge-Balleer and Josef Wittmann (both Corporate/M&A, Munich).
