Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting on Monday said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Splash Corp., Philippines’s largest personal care company. Splash, which clocked $80 million revenue last year, owns brands including SkinWhite, Maxi-peel and Vitress.
The transaction strengthens Wipro’s consumer care portfolio in personal care and strengthens its South-East Asian market footprint. The transaction value was not disclosed.
“This acquisition enables us to grow Wipro brands in the Philippines market by leveraging Splash’s distribution strength across market segments. Splash’s brands can be expanded further to other international markets where Wipro has a strong footprint and brands have latent equity. Splash brands are not only strong in the Philippines, but also have tremendous equity in multiple international markets such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Middle East and Nigeria,” Nagender Arya, regional director (East Asia, Africa and Europe), Wipro Consumer Care, said in a statement.
This is Wipro’s 11th consumer business acquisition, and the ninth in the personal care segment. The company has made five acquisitions in the Indian market in the consumer line business.
Wipro Consumer’s Santoor, Chandrika, Glucovita, North West and Wipro Smartlite are leading brands in India. Enchanteur, Safi, Bio-essence and Romano are market leaders in ASEAN countries. It also holds a minority stake in consumer products firm, Happily Unmarried Marketing Pvt. Ltd, for its range of Ustraa personal care products.
Wipro’s other overseas consumer acquisitions include the UK’s Yardley, Singapore-based personal care company LD Waxson Unza Holdings and China’s Zhongshan.
“We are confident that with Wipro’s marketing expertise and its international distribution network, we will significantly expand our geographical presence and take our brands to new heights,” said Rolando B. Hortaleza, chief executive, Splash Corp.
In India, the top seven best-selling personal care categories include cosmetics, fragrance, men’s grooming, skin care, bath and shower, haircare and oral care. Out of them, specialized categories, such as cosmetics, fragrance, men’s grooming and skincare, are set to overtake the growth of generic categories. By 2020, these specialized categories will contribute 40-45% to the overall market by 2022, according to a 2018 report by market research firm RedSeer Consulting.
“Some of Wipro’s competitors in the consumer space, such as Marico and Emami, have also made several overseas acquisitions. The Wipro acquisition, although might be a company from Philippines, it strengthens the India portfolio directly…because they (Wipro and competitors) believe that since they already have experience developing consumer products in India, acquired brands can be scaled faster in the Indian market,” said Harminder Sahni, managing director at Wazir Advisors.
Source: Mint