Beauty brand SuziBeauty has been purchased by Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed manufacturing company Flame Tree Group, subject to approval from the competition authority.

The acquisition will allow the brand to further develop in the African beauty market and develop into new areas such as skin care, including cleansers, moisturizers and eye creams, while also gaining market share for the brand. The African personal care market is dominated by multinationals such as P&G and L’Oréal, however, many domestic brands are now eyeing opportunities to eat into this market share.

Flame Tree Group CEO Heril Bangera spoke of the acquisition, and the desire to capitalize on the color cosmetics market, “We want to increase the brand’s presence in the market. We have seen the brand is successful, so there is an opportunity now to use that as a base to grow it within Kenya and beyond.
“Within Kenya the present market size is about $60m. We expect the East African (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) segment of the market to grow from the present $152m to $231m by 2018. So this is a special and a large opportunity for us. We believe it is an important area for us to venture into.”

SuziBeauty was founded by Suzie Wokabi in 2011 following three years of research. Wokabi set about creating a beauty brand to challenge other ‘over priced’ or unavailable global beauty brands on her local market.

Wanting to create a brand specific to African women, Wokabi describes the acquisition as a feat. “For me this is the biggest milestone so far. I have achieved everything I wanted to. It has been a few successful years. And even with all the challenges, we have managed to gain market share.”