Group

Wella Company

9 brands · founded 1880 · Switzerland

Wella Company is an independent global beauty group headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is the corporate parent of a portfolio of professional and consumer hair, nail and beauty brands, and it operates as a private company controlled by the private equity firm KKR. The group was established in its current form in 2020, when its professional and retail hair, nail and beauty business was separated from Coty Inc.

Although the company as a corporate entity dates to 2020, it traces its lineage to a German hair business founded in 1880 by Franz Ströher, a German hairdresser [1]. On its own account, the group frames itself as combining, in its words, "140+ years of earned wisdom and industry experience" with the profile of a newly independent company. That long heritage, paired with a recent private-equity carve-out, is what makes the group notable within professional haircare.

History & milestones

The Wella name originates with Franz Ströher's 1880 German hair business [1], which grew over the following century into one of Europe's larger hair-products companies. In 2003, Procter & Gamble acquired a majority stake in Wella AG for approximately US$5.7 billion, bringing the business into the portfolio of a large consumer-goods multinational [1].

The next major turn came in 2016, when Coty Inc. acquired Wella — together with the styling-tools brand ghd — as part of the divestiture of P&G's specialty beauty business. Four years later, in 2020, the business was separated again: Wella Company was established as an independent entity, divested from Coty and majority-owned by KKR, according to the group's own account of its history. From that point the modern company operated as a standalone group with its own portfolio of professional and consumer brands.

Portfolio & brands

Wella Company owns a range of professional and consumer beauty brands. Its salon-focused lines include Wella Professionals, Sebastian Professional, System Professional and Londa Professional, alongside the scalp-and-hair brand Nioxin. In consumer haircolor it owns Clairol, and it holds the Sassoon name. The group also owns the nail-care brand OPI and the hot-tools brand ghd, the clean-haircare brand Briogeo, and the sustainability-positioned line weDo. According to the company's own history page, these brands span professional salon products, retail haircare, haircolor, nail care and styling tools.

Acquisitions & strategy

The group's shape has been defined by a sequence of ownership changes and acquisitions. The 2003 purchase of a majority stake in Wella AG by Procter & Gamble, valued at roughly US$5.7 billion, moved the business into a global consumer-goods group [1]. In 2016, Coty acquired Wella and ghd through P&G's specialty beauty divestiture, and in 2020 the assets were carved out again to form the independent Wella Company under KKR's majority control.

As a standalone company, the group has continued to add brands. In 2022 it acquired Briogeo, a clean-haircare brand, expanding its position in that segment. The company presents this combination of an established professional-haircare core with newer, independently acquired brands as its growth strategy.

Ownership

Wella Company is privately held. Following the 2020 separation from Coty, the group was majority-owned by KKR, with Coty retaining a minority interest. In December 2025, Coty announced that it had sold its remaining 25.8% stake in Wella to KKR, leaving KKR as the sole owner [5]. Coty is a company listed on the New York and Paris exchanges; Wella Company itself is not publicly traded.

Brands in the group