AGRATE BRIANZA, Italy — Intercos is running in high gear, while planning on making a public offering, sometime this year.
The cosmetics supplier and manufacturer based here plans to float about a 35 percent stake in the company, which closed 2005 with sales of 180 million euros, or $218.5 million at current exchange, up 20 percent year-on-year.
“It took me 30 years to go from zero to where we are today,” said Dario Ferrari, president of Intercos. “And it will take only four to five years to double it. The opportunity is there, and we have to make it happen. Going public will speed up this process.”
The company is continuing its investment in China, where it is building two plants — a 120,000-square-foot facility to service the domestic market and a 330,000-square-foot plant for international business.
In the U.S., Intercos is doubling the size of its plant in Congers, N.Y., to 200,000 square feet.
“Our American customers are becoming more and more important to us,” said Ferrari, who added that in 2005, U.S. customers generated 57 percent of the company’s sales compared with 52 percent in 2004.
Intercos is also eyeing possible acquisitions, perhaps a technology company. Most recently, it purchased Swiss skin care manufacturer Centre de Recherche Biocosmetique.
“We don’t subcontract,” said Ferrari, referring to the filling service that the company is adding in the expanded Congers plant. “We only use our own formula in any of our products. We believe innovation is key,” he continued.
As part of the package, Intercos stages a yearly walk-through trend presentation that highlights its color know-how and, more recently, complete, ready-made products.
For this season, the theme is “Band of Beauty,” which divides different “youthful” trends by subcultures. Among them is Cool Cult, which culls inspiration from boarding and rollerblading cultures. Products in this category include a color cosmetics item attached by Velcro to a sporty bracelet.
The Members Only category is more aspirational and centers on black-and-white hues. Highlighted here are products looking as if they could have come from an estate sale, such as an oversize costume jewelry ring with a face that opens to display two solid lip glosses.
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Also part of Members Only is a segment called Manly Man, which is about masculine grooming. There is a splash-on bronzer packaged like after shave.
Under the Syn-Fusion Tribes header are items meant to combine technology and healthy actives to make people feel better inside and out. Organic shapes abound here and products include multipurpose formulas. For instance, there’s a tube resembling a closed parasol that holds a skin care product.
Urban Creator is all about nonconformity. Its items include eye-catching stamps that apply color cosmetics to skin.
Intercos has built a 5,000-square-foot showroom that’s divided into three segments — eye, lip and skin. Here, customers can not only see an evolving selection of the company’s creations, but can browse an archive of Intercos’ past six years of work.
The company did not attend Cosmoprof this year. So rather than meeting and entertaining customers in Bologna, Intercos executives presented the company’s novelties in-house. It also hosted gala dinners for more than 40 people at a time.