Premium Beauty News - The announcement of this merger came as a surprise at first?
Amaury de Menthière - Indeed at first sight, questions raised by this merger were legitimate. But in fact, there are a lot of synergies between the two companies. A few words first on the Sulzer Group itself, which employs more than 14000 people spread over 170 sites in the world: It is a Swiss company founded in 1834 mostly specialized today in the manufacturing of pumps, rotating equipment and, thanks to its SMS Division (720 people, 200 million Swiss francs in sales, six production sites) of applicators and distributors/mixers for the dental and pharmaceutical industries and industrial adhesives. And you know that Geka also manufactures applicators, which are different from those intended for the beauty industry since we started an activity in skincare and various other products, especially in the field of electronic cigarettes.
For the Sulzer Group, this diversification in the beauty industry is an excellent opportunity, and for Geka, the guarantee of having an industrial partner with a strong global foothold and who has long track record in the processing of plastic precision parts.
Premium Beauty News - Which means as a President, you will have an overall responsibility?
Amaury de Menthière - That’s right and it’s consistent. Because there are significant technical synergies. SMS is present in the United States, U.K., Denmark, China and Switzerland, of course. And as you know, we are present in Germany, the United States and Brazil. SMS manufactures applicators and dispensers for the dental and pharmaceutical industry mostly and to a lesser extend for cosmetics. This merger will result in the creation of a major player in the field of precision plastic injection.
Premium Beauty News - Many new products were recently showcased by Geka?
Amaury de Menthière - Absolutely! Both at MakeUp in New York and Luxe Pack Monaco, we put in the spotlight innovations in mascaras, lip glosses and eyeliners.
One of the highlight products we launched is our new moulded mascara brush called softSECRET which is available as a standard product. It is produced using the patented Sandwich process: two different plastic materials create a stable core with extremely soft bristles. Thanks to the harder brush core the lashes are precisely lifted and perfectly separated, while the transparent, extremely soft bristles reach the finest lashes.
Also in terms of twisted wire mascaras we are working with two different materials - but this time the single fibres consist of two components. The cores of the fibres are made of a hard material to comb the lashes and avoid lash clumping. However, the brush does not stitch on the eyelid as the hard fibre cores are coated by soft materials (i.e. a foam type) so that the fibres also absorb more formula for increased volume. To round up our innovations in the eye category we launched a new eyeliner that consists of 19 delicate moulded micro bristle that do not spread but create a continuous and precise line. At Luxe Pack we also presented a mascara with a colourful metallic sleeve decoration as well as a cap made with a marble metallic masterbatch that creates unique eye-catching effects on each product.
For the lip category we have our new squared heavy-walled lip gloss packaging. As we continuously see more and more demand for elaborate decorations, we now also offer in-house metallization and lacquering.
