Investment Firm Adds 44 Million Shares of Avon to Portfolio

Companies and Brands

Published: July 10, 2015 1:35 pm

Last Updated: April 27, 2020 11:41 pm

In a Schedule 13G filed Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Capital Research Global Investors, a division of investment firm Capital Research and Management Company, revealed that it has raised its stake in Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) to 48,993,600 shares as of June 30, 2015. At the end of March, Capital Research reported ownership of 4,875,300 shares of Avon stock.

Capital Research now owns 11.3% of Avon’s outstanding stock. The filing does not indicate how much the firm paid for the stock, but at Thursday’s closing price of $5.97 per share, the value of Capital Research’s holdings is nearly $294 million. It is probably safe to assume that the investment firm paid less than that for the stock.

The news follows by a day the announcement by Coty Inc. (NYSE: COTY) that it purchased Procter & Gamble Co.’s (NYSE: PG) cosmetics brands for $12.5 billion. Before coming public in 2013, Coty offered to acquire Avon for something more than $10 billion, an offer that Avon refused as being inadequate. Avon’s market value today is around $2.6 billion.

Earlier this week, Avon sold its U.K.-based Liz Earle cosmetics brand to Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) for about $216 million.

While no further announcements have been forthcoming from either Avon or Capital Research, it is a fair bet that we will be hearing something any day now.

Avon shares traded down about 1% to a new 52-week low of $5.90 on Friday. The 52-week high was $14.49.

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