Case 44 — Charlotte Tilbury · Charlotte Tilbury · 2020

The shops are shut, your investors want an exit, and two very different buyers are at the door. Do you sell, and to whom?

It is spring 2020. Your brand is seven years old, profitable, and growing fast in the United States, where you entered Sephora last year. Every counter in the world has just closed. Online orders are up, but lipstick sales are falling under masks while skincare holds. Sequoia and your early backers have been in for three years and will want a way out within a few more. You have had approaches: at least one large strategic group would pay the most and put you in every door it owns; a Spanish family-controlled fragrance house, Puig, with almost no makeup business, would pay a little less and leave you in charge. You are the brand's face, its creative director and its voice, and you are 47.

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