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Emami acquires controlling stake in Australia-based personal care company
KOLKATA: Kolkata-heaquartered fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) major Emami Ltd has acquired a controlling stake of 66.67 per cent in Australia-based personal care products firm Fravin.
The stake in the Australian firm has not only opened the market further for the Emami group’s flagship FMCG firm Emami, but has also given it access to a range of organic and natural personal care products.
The partial acquisition was done through one of its UAE-based subsidiary Emami Overseas FZE. Post this acquisition, Fravin and its three subsidiary companies have become subsidiaries of Emami.
“The Fravin acquisition is in sync with the company’s strategy to grow aggressively through both organic and inorganic routes in India and overseas. This is a significant step for the organisation as the acquisition marks Emami’s entry into organic personal care products, where we were not present earlier,” said company director Harsh Agarwal.
Agarwal said that the market for organic personal care products, which was around $ 7.6 billion in 2013, was expected to double in six years.
It is learnt that Fravin will be a part of Emami’s international business division, which contributes around 14 per cent to the FMCG business.
“Rising concerns for health safety, increasing green consciousness and growing awareness of the consumers about the hazards of using products with synthetic chemicals have fuelled the demand for organic personal care products,” he said.
Promoted by Peter Francis, Fravin Group manufactures hair care and skin care products that are certified organic by various certification bodies in Australia and US. The firm has research and development (R&D) and manufacturing plant at Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia.
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UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
