How The Body Shop’s new owner swiftly sold assets to its go-to fixer

In late January The Body Shop said it was selling a swath of its international business in a deal hailed by the ethical beauty brand as a “decisive step towards delivering a strong turnaround strategy”. 

The buyer of hundreds of stores in Europe and Asia was described as an unnamed “family office” by the chain’s new private equity owner Aurelius, which made no mention of having ties to the acquirer.

But rather than a wealthy family, the buyer was Friedrich Trautwein, a low-key German businessman who has previously been involved in at least five Aurelius investments including several corporate failures, according to company filings and people familiar with the matter. 

“His speciality is working with troubled companies,” one person close to Aurelius, which bought The Body Shop from Brazil’s Natura & Co in November, told the Financial Times. “He’s basically the guy who can appoint administrators and run this through the cycle.”

People who have done business with both Trautwein and Aurelius said he frequently acted on the firm’s behalf, including sitting on portfolio companies’ boards and helping them turn their businesses around or handle their bankruptcies, and that he had a close relationship with chair Dirk Markus.  

Trautwein’s involvement raises questions about the nature of the transaction, who stands to benefit and whether his role in dealing with the demise of several companies owned by Aurelius foreshadows what is to come for most of The Body Shop’s international division.

In what has been a chaotic ownership transition, Trautwein and The Body Shop UK’s administrators have been in negotiations over which countries he is responsible for running, according to some of the people and emails seen by the FT. This has created uncertainty at some of the international business units, the people added.

It took nearly two weeks before some senior executives in international branches of the business had any contact with their new owner….