• Sales in financial year 2014/15 increase to about EUR 2.6 billion
  • Initiatives to ensure continuation of growth path have been launched
  • Exclusive offerings will be highlights in the Christmas trading period

Hagen/Duesseldorf, 11 November 2015. Douglas continued to deliver on its growth strategy in the past financial year 2014/15. On the basis of preliminary figures, Europe's leading beauty chain generated sales of about EUR 2.6 billion between October 2014 and September 2015. This corresponds to a pro forma group-wide growth of about 5% to which both the German home market and the international businesses contributed. The international businesses by now generate some EUR 1.4 billion of total sales. E-commerce has again been an important growth driver with another high increase. Overall, online sales reached 10% of total sales.

'We are delighted with the development of our business over the past financial year, which has been an important year for us above and beyond our good results,' said Dr Henning Kreke, CEO of the Douglas Group. 'Douglas is now a strong company, but we can get even better. We have identified concrete potential for improvement we will now focus on exploiting. With our new shareholder CVC we have the right partner for this task.'

Douglas completed the transition to the new shareholder CVC Capital Partners in August 2015 and can now further accelerate its growth strategy as Europe's leading beauty chain. To support this project, Douglas has embarked on a continual improvement process designed to continually spark potent initiatives along four major lines of attack: brand expansion through even greater client orientation, investment in major growth drivers, performance and employee motivation. The objective is to create a powerful organisation that inspires consumers with a unique shopping experience.

A first contribution is to come from the impending pre-Christmas business which is expected to benefit from the favourable spending mood of consumers particularly in Germany. This year, Douglas banks particularly on strong brands and the fragrances 'J by Jennifer Aniston', 'ARI' by Ariana Grande and 'Me, Myself and you!' by Helene Fischer that are exclusively available from Douglas. 'We have had a strong start to the current financial year and remain on track for continued success,' says Henning Kreke. 'This gives us every confidence as we approach the pre-Christmas period.'

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