Happy Friday! The last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind, so I’m happy I get to jot down some thoughts for you here. This will (hopefully) brighten your Friday with another Op-Ed piece, sharing some big news, and informing you of the latest & greatest finance news in the industry.

As a self-proclaimed finance nerd, I have been glued to the private credit headlines for the last few weeks. (Fellow aficionados will understand Jamie Dimon’s ‘cockroach’ reference from the newsletter title.)

Blue Owl Capital (one of the world’s most prominent private credit firms) just capped withdrawals on two of its biggest funds after investors asked for roughly $5.4B of their money back in a single quarter.

That is a big story on its own.

It is also, as it turns out, a beauty industry story.

Earlier this month, Blue Owl Capital (NYSE: OWL) told shareholders it would cap redemptions at 5% on two of its largest private credit vehicles.

The numbers underneath that decision are pretty wild: investors in the $36B Blue Owl Credit Income Corp asked to pull 21.9% of the fund in one quarter, and in the smaller Tech Income fund, they asked for 40.7% back.

OWL is down more than 40% year-to-date. Apollo, Ares, Blackstone, KKR, and BlackRock have all wobbled alongside it.

So why is this in a beauty newsletter?

Because the same asset class that is currently having a really bad time is holding up an uncomfortable share of the beauty industry's capital structure, and the stress has already started showing up in brands you recognize.

Too Long; Didn’t Read: Private credit financed the last five years of beauty's private-equity party. That party is ending. Beauty has already started paying the bill in brand closures, fire-sale M&A, and writedowns… and we are in the very early innings.

The IMF's most recent Financial Stability Report found that 40% of private credit borrowers have negative free cash flow, up from 25% in 2021 (Source).

That is a pretty noteworthy stat.

Private equity now accounts for roughly 40% of the M&A in the beauty industry (Source).

That is fine in an expanding market with cheap money. It is not fine when consumer demand softens, tariffs squeeze margins, ingredient costs spike (see my previous Beauty Bytes article on the Strait of Hormuz), and sponsors can't exit because the IPO "window" is, as I discussed in February, a revolving door.

Here is what the damage looks like so far:

These are not indie startup brands running out of runway.

The debt got expensive, so the “math didn’t math anymore”.

Let me try to put some ‘back-of-the-napkin math’ behind this.

If the global beauty industry is ~$550B and PE owns roughly 40% of it, that is ~$220B of sponsor-backed revenue sitting on ~18% EBITDA margins, which at the typical 5.5x leverage implies somewhere around $220B of debt sitting on beauty's cap tables.

Apply the "true" private credit default rate of ~5%, and you are looking at roughly $11B of beauty debt already under real stress.

Said plainly: that is a lot of beloved brands operating on borrowed time and borrowed money, and the music has stopped.🎶

Which brings me to Jamie Dimon’s quote: "when you see one cockroach, there are probably more."🪳

He was talking about autos and subprime loans but maybe Beautycounter was just cockroach #1.

I don’t want to be a doomsdayer. But for beauty specifically, the situation is uglier than for many other industries: tight margins, tariffs, inflation, delayed exits, and now input-cost inflation from the Gulf on top.

I would love to hear your take on this. Email me at [email protected].

If the last two weeks felt a bit nauseating, you are not alone.

Markets have been on a violent rollercoaster as the Iran conflict drags on without any semblance of a unified front towards peace between Tehran and the White House. The VIX (the market volatility index) has been whipsawing in both directions, jumping nearly 12% this week as crude spiked from the low 80s back toward $96 a barrel.

And yet, despite zero visible end to the conflict, the S&P 500 closed at a fresh all-time high of 7,137.90 on April 22, fully erasing every point of its Iran war drawdown and then some.

Apparently, the market's new motto is "up and to the right, forever, regardless of what's actually happening."

Call it the TACO trade [overheard on Wall Street and referring to: Trump Always Chickens Out], call it conviction, or just call it a bubble.

Whatever the label, investors seem increasingly happy to look straight through geopolitical risk at whatever's on the other side. The question is: will they get burnt?

Quick note: I did not have the bandwidth to pull together the Beauty Bytes Pulse this week. If you're missing it and would like it included in every edition, hit reply or shoot me a quick note at [email protected].

Now, to the regularly scheduled finance news. Let’s dive in:

VMG Partners has taken a minority stake in The Doux, a textured haircare brand; terms were not disclosed.

Beauty Independent reports the brand generated about $38m in 2025 sales and roughly $7.3m of EBITDA, with the new capital set to support further retail expansion.

Sandbridge Capital led a $1m funding round in Sweet Chemistry, a science-led peptide skincare brand built around proprietary “Matrikynes” technology developed by parent company Xylyx Bio. Learn more.

Advent International has hired Jefferies and Goldman Sachs to run an early-stage sale process for niche fragrance brand Parfums de Marly, according to BeautyMatter.

The brand is said to generate roughly €375m to €400m in annual sales and is reportedly seeking a valuation near €2b, though sources suggest a deal may ultimately clear below that level.

Nivora Group has acquired AAVRANI, the prestige skincare brand centered around Ayurvedic ingredients; terms were not disclosed. Founded in 2017, AAVRANI had raised more than $15m and entered Sephora U.S. and Canada in 2024, bringing Ayurvedic beauty further into prestige retail. Learn more.

Topspin Consumer Partners has closed its oversubscribed third fund at $328m, above its original hard cap, to continue backing fast-growing founder-led consumer companies across beauty, personal care, health and wellness.

The raise lifts firmwide assets under management to about $830m and represents a meaningful step up from Topspin’s $205m Fund II in 2021. Learn more.

Registrar Corp, backed by private equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners, has acquired Canada-based regulatory consulting firm Dell Tech; terms were not disclosed. Learn more.

L’Occitane Group has hired Morgan Stanley to explore a sale of Elemis, with the British skincare brand reportedly being marketed for just under $1b, according to Axios Pro.

That asking price is only modestly above the roughly $900m L’Occitane paid in 2019, even though Elemis accounted for 10.1% of group sales in FY2025, implying about €283m of revenue on L’Occitane’s €2.8b annual base.

QVC Group has filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy to cut debt from $6.6b to about $1.3b, with the company aiming to emerge within 90 days while continuing normal operations. The restructuring applies to its U.S. entities, and the company has said vendors, suppliers, and general unsecured creditors will be paid in full. Learn more.

L’Oréal’s BOLD venture fund has invested in Hanni, the body care brand founded by Leslie Tessler in 2021; terms were not disclosed. The investment follows Hanni’s earlier funding rounds, including a $2m raise in 2025. Learn more.

Prelude Growth Partners and Imaginary Ventures have invested an additional $15m in Westman Atelier, according to SEC filings first reported by Beauty Independent.

The round gives the celebrity makeup artist–founded brand fresh runway at a time when makeup exits remain difficult, despite Westman Atelier being one of the most closely watched prestige color assets in the market.

Estée Lauder (NYSE: EL) has reportedly tapped JPMorgan to arrange roughly €5b ($5.9b) of financing for a potential bid for Puig (BME: PUIG), according to Reuters. This follows last month’s disclosure that the two companies were exploring a combination that would create one of the world’s largest premium beauty groups.

L Catterton has launched CHAMP, a $500m consumer-focused investment fund backed by more than 250 athletes and influencers, with athletes themselves committing over $50m, according to the Financial Times.

The fund, formed with Mark Patricof, will invest in consumer brands and use athlete ownership and endorsement to help drive growth, with backers including Kevin Durant, Mike Trout, Patrick Cantlay, Joe Burrow, Logan Webb, Sophie Cunningham, and Livvy Dunne.