Natura Returns to Profitability with 4.5% Sales Surge in First Half

Natura escapes the red numbers. With a result of 44.4 million Brazilian reais (just over $8 million) in the first half of the year, the Brazilian company specialized in cosmetics has left behind the losses recorded during the same period of 2024, which reached 1,794.1 million Brazilian reais ($329.7 million).

The cosmetics giant also managed to increase its turnover by 4.5% to 10,830.4 million Brazilian reais ($1.99 billion). Gross operating profit (ebitda) increased by 15.39% in the first six months of the year, to 1,577.1 million Brazilian reais ($289,8 million).

Natura described the results obtained in the first part of the year as “healthy” and “slightly better than expected”. It highlights its main market, Brazil, where the company is “above average market performance, offsetting the challenges still faced by Avon”.

Natura lost the first half of 2024 up to 1,794.1 million Brazilian reais ($329.7 million)

However, the company laments a “notable slowdown” of the economy in Brazil as part of a “less favorable” in Latin America, “increasing pressure in Mexico and a possible significant depreciation in the exchange rate in Argentina”. Although “the scenario is challenging,“ the company expects to increase its ebitda over 2025 compared to 2024.

In 2023, Natura sold The Body Shop and, last year, began the segregation of Avon, an asset it has already put up for sale. This operation is part of the plan the company has been drawing up since 2023, which includes a simplification of its structure.

That same year, the cosmetics group also sold its Australian brand Aesop to the French multinational L’Oréal for 2,525 million dollars to reduce its debt.