Significant events that have occurred since the beginning of financial year 2022
- On 3 January 2022, at CES 2022, L'Oréal unveiled its latest Beauty Tech innovations to reinvent the entire hair-colouring category. Colorsonic and Coloright are user-design breakthroughs set to transform the at-home and in-salon experience for consumers and professionals.
- On 20 January 2022, L'Oréal and Verily, an Alphabet precision health company, announced an exclusive beauty partnership to advance skin health. The first-of-its kind partnership in the beauty industry is expected to entail two programmes aimed at better understanding and characterising skin and hair aging mechanisms. It will also inform L’Oréal’s precision Beauty Tech strategy and product development.
- On 26 January 2022, L'Oréal was recognised by Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index 2022 for the 5th consecutive year, for having successfully created an inclusive and equal work environment. This reference index measures gender equality across five pillars: female leadership & talent pipeline, equal pay & gender pay parity, inclusive culture, anti-sexual harassment policies, as well as pro-women brand.
- On 9 February 2022, the Board of Directors of L’Oréal cancelled the 22,260,000 L’Oréal shares repurchased from Nestlé, in accordance with the Board’s decisions on 7 December 2021, effective as of 10 February 2022. As of 10 February 2022, L’Oréal’s capital is formed by 535,412,372 shares with equivalent voting rights.
- On 9 March 2022, the Group strongly condemned the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and announced its decision to temporarily close all its own stores and directly operated counters in department stores, its own brand e-commerce sites, and to suspend all industrial and national media investments in Russia. The Group’s presence in these two countries is limited. In 2021, the Group’s sales in Ukraine and Russia amounted to 0.4% and 2% of Group sales respectively. In addition, the net book value of our industrial assets is less than €40 million as of 31 December 2021.
- On 11 March 2022, L’Oréal has received a Long-Term Issuer Credit ratings of AA from Standard and Poor’s and an Issuer Rating of Aa1 from Moody’s. The outlooks assigned to the ratings by both agencies are ‘Stable’.
2022 Outlook
In a global context that remains volatile at the beginning of the year, we are confident in our ability to outperform the market in 2022 and achieve another year of growth in both sales and profits.
Measures taken by L’Oréal in the context of the Covid-19 health crisis
2021 was marked by the impacts of the Covid-19 health crisis that has spread around the world and has affected a number of geographic zones in which the Group operates.
The Group’s priority is to protect the health, safety and security of its employees. The Group achieves this through compliance with the directives of the authorities in the countries in which it operates, the application and adaptation of its worldwide, high management standards for health and safety at its operational sites and in business travel situations (see section 4.3.2 of this document).
Since the start of the Covid-19 health crisis, L’Oréal has committed to taking action on social issues, considering itself responsible for working with its stakeholders, particularly with its suppliers (see section 4.3.1.2 “Involving suppliers in the Group’s transformation” of this document), by offering them online training on safety measures in the context of the pandemic, and also its employees with remote working, online training and specific information on cyber security.
