ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
During the Annual General Meeting, Barbara Lavernos, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology, presented L’Oréal’s expertise in Beauty Tech.
“L’Oréal has been a pioneer in harnessing the power of new technologies to become the indisputable leader in Beauty Tech, for beauty that’s more personalised, inclusive and responsible.”
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Shareholders had the opportunity to take the floor and put questions to Jean-Paul Agon and Nicolas Hieronimus. Read a summary of certain topics from discussions between L’Oréal and its shareholders.
What are you doing to attract and retain the best talent?
Our success stems from the engagement of our employees, which demonstrates L’Oréal’s appeal. We received 1.3 million applications in 2023, an increase of +7%, and we are one of the top ten companies in the Universum ranking of the most attractive employers among future business school graduates. We are committed to youth through our Brandstorm competition (130,000 young people signed up last year) but also to our senior employees.
The dynamic nature of the beauty industry, the quality of our compensation and our long-term retention plans secure the loyalty of our talent, as reflected in our low turnover rate.
What are you doing to address the emergence of new beauty brands?
L’Oréal has a 15% share of the global beauty market and we continue to build our lead, spurred on by diverse competitors - one of the reasons behind our eternal youth and 115 years of success.
Faced with new brands bringing innovative ideas, we draw on the power of our Research & Innovation to go further. Emerging and developing brands sometimes provide an opportunity to enrich our portfolio through acquisitions, like Aēsop, SkinBetter Science and Takami. All our teams strive to ensure L’Oréal outperforms the market, and that is precisely what we are doing.
What is L’Oréal’s development strategy in India?
India is a booming market. It is the world’s 9th largest beauty market, but currently ranks only 15th for L’Oréal. Population growth represents a potential 350 million new consumers over the next decade. The Group is already active in India through our Professional Products Division; Consumer Products activity is developing and we launched the CeraVe brand at the end of the year, marking the start of the Dermatological Beauty Division. The Luxe Division will launch in 2024. E-commerce development will be a catalyst for our growth. It’s a tremendous new field of opportunity for L’Oréal.
How does L’Oréal use its net cash flow?
L’Oréal uses its substantial cash reserves – over €6 billion in 2023 – to maintain a healthy financial position. The Group has an impressive capacity to generate cash, which it funnels into three key areas.
The first is organic growth, which L’Oréal finances through industrial and technological investments, and in meeting its working capital requirements, which increase proportional to sales. This represented an investment of €1.9 billion in 2023.
Second, L’Oréal uses cash to fund acquisitions that bolster its unique portfolio. We invested around €2.5 billion in 2023.
The third area is allocating cash to dividends, which have grown steadily to reach around €3.5 billion in payouts in 2023.