Pretty ... bad
Elizabeth Arden shares plummet
FRAGRANCE maker Elizabeth Arden isn’t smelling so sweet.
Shares of the cosmetics company, which sells Nicki Minaj and Britney Spears perfumes, dropped the most in a month after the firm said it would slash jobs and shutter its operations in Puerto Rico.
The news tempered hopes among some investors that the company was on the verge of selling itself.
South Korea’s LG Household & Health Care had said in April it might bid for the company.
Last month, centuryold Elizabeth Arden reported a surprise quarterr ly loss amid sluggish demand for its perfumes and said it was exploring its options.
“If you are thinking you are very close to a deal and you see a filing with a big restructuring, it kind of makes you think a deal is not as imminent as you thought,” Linda Bolton Weiser, a senior analyst at B. Riley, told the Daily News. Elizabeth Ard Arden shares fell 4% to $27.2 $27.22.
Bu But a deal cou could still be in the w works, and th the compan ny is mak- ing needed changes after some strategic missteps, she added.
The company fumbled a revamp of its namesake beauty brand and suffered after Walmart, one of its biggest customers, pulled back on its perfume inventory last year.
As part of the restructuring, the company is discontinuing a number of its fragrance brands, including Usher and BCBG, and will cut 175 jobs, or 6% of its head count worldwide, Bolton Weiser said.