Henkel announced plans to merge its business units Laundry & Home Care and Beauty Care into one business unit: Henkel Consumer Brands. The company will start preparations for the integration process immediately and aims to have the new organisation in place latest by beginning of 2023. With the new business unit, the company will build one multi-category platform for growth, combining its consumer brands and businesses under one roof, including many brands such as Persil and Schwarzkopf, also comprising the hair professional business.

“We will join forces in our consumer goods businesses to create one strong, integrated business unit as a foundation for future profitable growth. The integrated Consumer Brands business will bring significant benefits to Henkel, our shareholders, customers and teams and will be well-positioned to actively shape its future in a highly dynamic industry,” said Carsten Knobel, CEO of Henkel.

“We are creating a multi-category platform with around 10 billion euros in sales. This will provide a broader basis to further optimise and shape our portfolio towards a higher growth and margin profile. We will also capture significant synergies and efficiency gains, allowing us to free up resources which will be used in part for targeted investments in our strategic priorities, such as innovation, sustainability, and digitalisation,” he added.

This will allow the new Consumer Brands business to free up resources for higher investments and better target these investments in strategic capabilities, for example digitalization of R&D, e-commerce capabilities or sustainability efforts around recyclable packaging. Synergies will be also used to strengthen the business unit’s margin profile.

The integration process and the new combined unit will be led by Wolfgang König, currently Executive Vice President for Henkel´s Beauty Care business. Bruno Piacenza, who leads Henkel´s Laundry & Home Care business as Executive Vice President since 2011, will continue to lead the Laundry & Home Care business, work closely with Wolfgang König on the transition process and stay with Henkel latest until the end of 2022.

“On behalf of the Shareholders’ Committee and the Supervisory Board of Henkel, I would like to wish Wolfgang König all the best for his new responsibility. His international management and leadership experience in the consumer goods, home and personal care industry will be highly valuable in forming and successfully developing our new Consumer Brands business unit together with the new leadership team,” said Dr. Simone Bagel-Trah, Chairwoman of the Shareholders’ Committee and the Supervisory Board of Henkel.

“Under the leadership of Wolfgang König, the combined team will focus on advancing the entire Consumer Brands business, with leaner structures and faster decision-making. I would also like to express my personal appreciation for Bruno Piacenza and his many achievements in the course of more than three decades at Henkel,” said Carsten Knobel.