Revlon

Revlon was founded on March 1, 1932, by the brothers Charles and Joseph Revson together with a chemist, Charles Lachman, whose surname supplied the "L" in the company name [1]. According to the company's own history, the founders began with a nail enamel and built out a broader cosmetics range from there.

Over the following decades the company expanded through acquisition and into professional products. It acquired the Mitchum deodorant and antiperspirant business in 1970, and in 1979 moved into salon distribution with the launch of Revlon Professional [1]. Through the 1980s it added brands including Almay, Charles of the Ritz, Germaine Monteil and Halston, and acquired Max Factor in 1987 [2]. In 2000 the company sold its professional products division, a business it would later reacquire in 2013 [1].

Revlon groups a mix of mass-market and prestige beauty brands. Alongside the core Revlon cosmetics line, the company lists Elizabeth Arden, Almay, Cutex, Mitchum and Creme of Nature among its consumer brands [1]. Its professional and salon division includes American Crew and the nail brand CND, along with hair-care lines such as Orofluido, UniqOne, Style Masters and Intragen.

The group also markets fragrances under licence from a range of celebrity and designer names, including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, John Varvatos, Elizabeth Taylor and Ed Hardy. The Halston name has been part of Revlon's holdings since the 1980s.

Revlon's growth has been shaped by a series of ownership changes and acquisitions. In 1985 the company was acquired by Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings in a leveraged buyout [1]. It returned to the public markets in 1996 with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange [1].

Two large deals reshaped the group in the 2010s. In 2013 Revlon acquired The Colomer Group for roughly $660 million, a purchase that added professional brands including American Crew, CND and Creme of Nature and reunited the company with the professional products division it had earlier divested [2]. In 2016 it acquired Elizabeth Arden for about $870 million, a deal the company described as creating a global beauty company with a broad portfolio of brands [1]. The same year it added the Cutex nail-care brand.

Revlon was previously a public company, listed on the NYSE from 1996 and controlled by MacAndrews & Forbes, which at times held about 84.7% of the shares under Perelman [2]. That structure ended with the company's bankruptcy. On June 16, 2022, Revlon filed for Chapter 11 protection [2]. In December 2022 it announced plans to raise $650 million in new equity and transfer the majority of ownership to senior leaders, and in February 2023 it reached a settlement with its lenders that cleared the path out of bankruptcy.

Under the reorganisation plan, the company swapped more than $2.7 billion of secured debt for equity and raised a $650 million rights offering, with unsecured creditors receiving $44 million [4]. The plan wiped out Perelman's equity and transferred control to the company's lenders. Revlon emerged from Chapter 11 in May 2023 and now operates as Revlon Group Holdings LLC, a private company no longer publicly traded, with former creditors holding more than 80% of the reorganised equity [2]. The controlling lender group has been reported to include affiliates of Glendon Capital Management, King Street Capital Management, Angelo Gordon & Co., Oak Hill Advisors and Cyrus Capital Partners.