Hut Group’s buying spree tops £850m in beauty deal

TECH darling The Hut Group’s blizzard of buy-ups today topped £850 million since last year’s blockbuster float as the digital retailer swooped to add London-founded Cult Beauty to its online empire.

THG, which sells nutrition, vitamins and beauty products and licenses out its payment technology, is paying £275 million for

Cult, which stocks 300 high-end skincare and make-up brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Molton Brown and Huda.

The purchase takes THG’s acquisition spend to £854 million since September and signals a big payday for privately-held Cult’s founder and co-CEO Alexia Inge (pictured) and majority investor Mark QuinnNewall, a founding partner of Net-a-Porter.

It is the latest in a flurry of deals for THG, which also include the $255 million takeover of Bentley

Laboratories,

a US upmarket beauty products developer.

It comes around three months after the group raised more than $1 billion in new equity, with backers including Japan’s SoftBank. THG, led by founder Matthew Moulding, said at the time the proceeds would be used to help “execute an advanced pipeline of strategic M&A” over 2021.

Cult Beauty, which launched in 2008, is is expected to contribute

sales of around £60 million and underlying profits of £3 million for the remainder of the 2021 financial year.

Moulding said: “Cult Beauty’s first-tomarket reputation makes the brand an exciting fit for our THG beauty division.”

Analysts at Barclays said: “Strategically this makes sense to us — consolidating the UK market, plenty of room to internationalise, adding brands to the portfolio and driving synergies.”

THG today said it continues to benefit from high customer demand and is on track for revenue growth of around 40% on a constant currency basis this year. That tops previous guidance of 30% to 35%. Shares in THG, which floated at 500p, today gained 11p to 590.5p.