After Forma Brands, the parent company of Morphe Cosmetics, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month and ended its licensing agreement with r.e.m. beauty, Ariana Grande is set to buy the physical assets for her beauty brand, r.e.m. beauty, for an estimated $15 million.
SIGNIFICANT FIGURE
The sum totaled $2.3 billion. That’s how much money Ulta Beauty made in Q1 of 2022, the company claims. CEO Dave Kimbell said that new celebrity-backed brands like r.e.m. beauty were responsible for a 21% increase in sales compared to the same period last year.
IMPORTANT CONTEXT
Forma Brands put Grande’s r.e.m. beauty line on its website in November 2021, before making deals with cosmetics stores to sell it. Ulta was the first big store to sell Forma in 2022. In December 2020, Grande gave the company the right to use her name, image, and likeness.
According to court documents, Forma’s internal revenue estimates were always off, even though the company had worked with celebrities like Jeffree Star and James Charles in recent years. After filing for bankruptcy, the company said on January 12 that it had received $33 million in new funding to keep doing business.
TANGENT
According to Business of Fashion, Morphe Cosmetics’ sales dropped from $500 million in 2020 to $295 million in 2021, prompting the company to announce on January 5 that it would be closing all of its stores in the United States.
