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| A Missha store in Belarus / Courtesy of Able C&C |
By Anna J. Park
Ever since IMM Private Equity Equity (PE) took over Able C&C ― the cosmetic-based, Korea-headquartered company with various brands such as Missha and A'pieu ― in April 2017, Able C&C's CEO has been the least stable position.
During the past four years, the cosmetic company's CEO position has seen a change eight times ― either by being newly replaced with a new leader, or by restructuring the CEO position's system by putting various independent leaders in each department. In both cases, such moves were seen as IMM's struggle to turn around Able C&C's profits quickly.
However, due to the continued impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, the company reported an operating loss of 68 billion won ($59.7 million) last year, with a fall in revenue to 307.5 billion won, a 27.2 percent year-on-year decline. The company's annual net loss expanded by about 10 times to 97.8 billion won last year, from 9.6 billion won in 2019. The firm's high reliance on its offline business, which accounts for more than 80 percent of its annual revenue, was the main reason behind the worsened performance. Over 160 offline stores nationwide closed down last year.
As the negative impact from the pandemic continues to affect the cosmetics industry, Able C&C logged a quarterly loss during the first quarter of this year as well, as it recorded a quarterly revenue of 66.6 billion won with an operating loss of 6 billion won.
While the quarterly loss was reduced in size from the same quarter of last year, the performance was still below what IMM PE had expected of the company when it acquired 25.5 percent of the firm's equity of 188.2 billion won four years ago.
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| Able C&C CEO Kim Eugene / Courtesy of Able C&C |
As Able C&C's stock price is still below the price at which IMM PE acquired it four years ago due to the company's recent poor performance, industry watchers are paying close attention to Kim, to see whether she can indeed pull off turning around Able C&C.
