Major French cosmetics group buys Korean brand

L`Occitane Group, a global manufacturer of natural beauty care products based in France, was confirmed Wednesday to have taken over Symbiose Cosmetics, a Korean maker of oriental medicine cosmetics.

This is the first time that a leading French cosmetics company has bought a Korean firm. Riding the Korean Wave boom, "K-beauty" is gaining popularity in Japan, China and Europe, which led L`Occitane to acquire a Korean oriental medicine cosmetics firm to make inroads into the global market.

Japan`s Shu Uemura was taken over by L`Oreal and SK II by P&G, and the two former Japanese items have been turned into global brands. Eyes are now on the prospects of a global brand with Korean roots.

L`Occitane Group acquired 50.14 percent of Symbiose and expects to increase its stake to 63 percent. The remaining 37 percent will be owned by Symbiose founder and CEO Lee Ho-jung.

A L`Occitane source said Symbiose`s premium brand Erboriant is selling well at major stores in Europe. The French group owns L`Occitane and Melvita, operating 2,000 stores in 90 countries.

Relatively little known in Korea, Symbiose was founded in 2006 by Lee, who used to work for L`Oreal as cosmetics developer with fellow marketing expert Katalin Berenyi with an aim to make inroads into the global market.

Lee said, "I realized how competitive Korean cosmetics would be while working at L`Oreal`s headquarters in France," adding, "Oriental medicine cosmetics have high performance while maintaining an oriental mystique feature, and I was confident that this factor would work in Europe." Symbiose decided to go with the brand name Erborian, which means "Asian hub."

Lee was in charge of R&D and production in Korea and Berenyi sales and marketing in France. The company`s night creams Jinseng, Infusion and Yuza Sorbet were launched at Le Bon Marche, one of the best known luxury department stores in France. The words "Korean Skin Therapy" is embedded on each product.

Symbiose`s sales reached 3.5 billion won (3.15 million dollars) last year.