Kylie Jenner sold 51% of Kylie Cosmetics to Coty for… $600 million!!

When I heard this news yesterday, I had a weird moment of something like pride for Kylie Jenner. It’s weird – four years ago, I would have said that she would turn out to be the biggest trainwreck of the Kardashian-Jenner family. But she’s arguably the most successful businesswoman of the family, and she found some way to monetize her insecurities about her looks into Kylie Cosmetics and now here we are. Kylie Jenner just sold a 51% stake in Kylie Cosmetics to Coty. Coty purchased the controlling interest for $600 million. Kylie is 22 years old. She started Kylie Cosmetics in Kris Jenner’s kitchen, when Kylie was still a teenager, living at home. Kris allowed Kylie to get plastic surgery and lip injections and Kylie wanted some way to highlight her new lips, so she started working on her own lipstick. Originally, it was supposed to be more of a boutique lipstick line. And now it’s become a company worth $1.2 billion. INSANE.

After maintaining full ownership of Kylie Cosmetics since its launch in 2015, Kylie Jenner has officially sold a majority stake in her business to beauty conglomerate Coty for $600 million. Jenner, 22, sold a 51 percent stake in Kylie Cosmetics to Coty, which owns other beauty brands including Covergirl, OPI, Rimmel, GHD and Clairol. The sale valued the company at almost $1.2 billion, Business of Fashion reports. While Jenner did sell a majority stake in Kylie Cosmetics, according to an official release, she and her team will continue to lead all creative efforts of product development and communication initiatives.

“I’m excited to partner with Coty to continue to reach even more fans of Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin around the world. I look forward to continuing the creativity and ingenuity for each collection that consumers have come to expect and engaging with my fans across social media,” Jenner said in a release. She added: “This partnership will allow me and my team to stay focused on the creation and development of each product while building the brand into an international beauty powerhouse.”

Coty plans to capitalize on the strengths of Jenner’s digitally-native company and utilize its “high potential” to continue growing it into a global beauty powerhouse. In addition to expanding Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin’s product offerings, Coty also sees potential in the fragrance category.

[From People]

Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian are both doing fragrances now, but I don’t think they’ve teamed up with any major fragrance company. If Kylie does fragrances with Coty, the Coty brand will give her an amazing platform. Of course, it depends on the scent. For every J.Lo Glow, there are like three dozen also-ran celebrity fragrances which never “made it.” As for the rest of it
 I mean, $600 million for 51% of the company is amazing. It really is. I’m genuinely proud of her? I’m proud of Kris Jenner too, she put so much of this together.

Photos courtesy of Instagram.

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88 Responses to “Kylie Jenner sold 51% of Kylie Cosmetics to Coty for… $600 million!!”

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  1. Devon says:

    Say what you will but 600 Mil DAMN!

    • BayTampaBay says:

      Kylie, You Go Girl!

      • Adrianna says:

        There are positive comments on here praising Kyle’s success which is nice to see. In the past there was a lot of negativity because a 22 year old girl is ridiculously successful. I expected to see the jealous claws come out so this is a pleasant surprise.

    • Escondista says:

      Seriously? At this point in history we’re excited about the rich getting richer? The privileged taking advantage of their privilege?
      I mean yay for Kylie… a real rags to riches story.
      If Kylie pays gobs to taxes to ensure that people her age in this country get to retire before age 70 then I’ll applaud this.

  2. Ann says:

    That is impressive. I kind of want to try some of her products. I never wear lipstick and rarely wear face makeup (like concealer, the contouring, that kind of stuff) but I love eye makeup. Has anyone ever used her stuff? Her Christmas line has what looks like a cream eyeshadow in really pretty colors and those are my favorites.

    • Erinn says:

      I’ve heard mixed reviews. There are people who absolutely love her and will promote the crap out of the product… then there are plenty of people who can’t stand her who write her products off. From what I can tell there are some actual hits among the stuff she offers. I haven’t tried a lip kit yet, but I’m curious.

      A lot of the eyeshadows aren’t really groundbreaking – but they are PRETTY. And they’re supposed to blend really nicely for the most part.

      • Arizona says:

        I strongly recommend trying a lip kit if you’re interested! I’m obsessed with them and everyone that I know who has tried mine have ended up buying some haha.

    • Lizzie says:

      i have 3 lip kits and love them all. all beauty lines have some duds but i would at the very least try anything in her brand based on the quality of the lip products alone.

      and good for her. no matter what she does – it is based on nepotism b/c she literally wasn’t taken to school by her parents and there is no way she could do anything else. but she has figured out how capitalize on her family’s brand for herself and i think that’s cool. i know kris and managers work on these deals but her personal instagram was the singular advertising for the brand for years. she made it famous. her name is on it. she deserves the money.

    • Jadedone says:

      If you have some extra money to spend I would recommend Pat McGrath makeup, it’s to die for

      • Ladiabla says:

        Ooo I get emails from Pat McGrath but haven’t bought anything yet. Anything that you’d recommend? The lipsticks look amazing, but any particular shade? As for Kylie, good for her on the sale but I’ll never buy anything from that family.

      • Digital Unicorn says:

        I love the packaging for her brand, esp the lipsticks. Its a bit out of my price range (almost ÂŁ40 for a lipstick) thou.

      • Thea says:

        @ LADIABLA I love the 1995 shade

      • Jadedone says:

        Sorry for the late reply @ladiabla I absolutely love her eye shadows. They are amazing colors and go on smooth and stay the whole day. It’s the pigment she chooses, they are just stunning 🙂

      • Ladiabla says:

        Thanks ladies! @jadedone and thea đŸ€—

    • Arizona says:

      I have, honestly, probably thirty or so of her matte and velvet lip kits. I’ve tried a bunch of different liquid lipsticks, and these are the best, IMO.

      I have one of her eyeshadow palettes and it’s pretty good but lips are my thing so I’m not very knowledgeable aside from those. I also just got her lip mask because my lips have been SO chapped and peeling, and it seems to be helping.

      I’m not a Kardashian stan at all, but I’m definitely a stan for her lip kits.

      • Ann says:

        My must for eyeshadow is color saturation because so many eyeshadows don’t look the same when applied vs what they look like in the palette. Kylie’s line looks good in that department. The consistency and saturation all look great when she does the color swatch videos. I think I’ve talked myself into it… I’ve only read good reviews for the lipkits and homegirl obviously knows about makeup so why not?

  3. aurora says:

    She started working on her own lipstick in her Mum’s kitchen? Okaaaaayyyyy…

  4. Eliza says:

    It was valued at 1.2bil and she gave up her controlling shares so now Coty can do whatever it wants. Honestly, I means she can work less and still pull her large salary as board member, and her skincare line needed better experts so Coty can help grow that branch better.

    • asdfa says:

      That was smart as hell. She knew she needed them.

    • Can’tbe says:

      This is impressive but two things on a more realistic note. 1.2 bill was originally and most likely inflated by Forbes for the billionaire article as her company wasn’t public and apparently Kris gave Forbes the numbers. Forbes is notorious for pricing high brands which thrive on brand name think Trump. I thought she was trying to sell cause other than ego that’s why you try to get on Forbes list. This reason alone is why Kris is worth her weight in gold cause she got near that price evaluation. Don’t know the deal but if Kylies even just tied up with the company for 15 years that’s just 40 mill a year for her brand name. Which isn’t that much and you know based on comments here she brings some product development and knowledge to the table too. It seems like a good deal for Coty too, plus she’s not tied with the business nitty gritty part which she may not have enjoyed. She seemed to enjoy the creative development and marketing more. Just going by her statement. Now bad news is Coty has been not doing great lately, so we will see how this works. They seem to just be buying other companies up.

  5. STRIPE says:

    AND she still has 49%. As Coty helps grow the brand it will become even more valuable and that share will be worth more every day. I suspect she will see a HUGE buy out of that last 49% as well, probably more than $600m

  6. Tanguerita says:

    we live in such ridiculous times.

  7. bgirl says:

    This deal leaves a lot of questions… if the company is soooo successful, why selling it, renouncing 51% of the profit? If she needs cash for another business development, well, ok. But do you really sell a very very successful company, giving away the majority? Hmmm…

    • emmy says:

      You can ruin a company many ways. It probably became too successful for them to keep running it themselves. That takes a crazy amount of time and honestly, as much as I admire their business acumen, I doubt Kylie and Kris were interested or capable of running this massive a company much longer. And why would they?

    • Mumbles says:

      These celebrity billionaire stories are always a bit sketchy – her, Bethenny, Jessica Simpson. More often than not, the celebrity licenses their name to an existing product and makes nice money out of that – but not billions or multiple millions.

      • Wilady says:

        Bethenny absolutely started her company. She’s a Hustler through and through. Making things at home, selling them to stores, giving samples literally everywhere. Developed the margarita, and sold sold sold the to everyone she could. She joined the housewives for visibility to grow her company. That chick works hard.

        Jessica is definitely on the creative side too, and does a ton of work. There’s a reason it’s successful, because people love her eye, and she knows what she likes.

        My daughter loves JoJo Siwa stuff, but that JoJo girl will make videos where she will go to Target to buy her own merch and be surprised at what she sees. THAT’S a perfect example of someone who sells her name to products, and has no control or creative input as to what or how.

    • megs283 says:

      Personally, I would have sold 100% and then went on my merry, rich way. I guess I don’t love the hustle. LOL.

      • Can’tbe says:

        If she sold it all they would have still have made her be the face of the brand for a while. A good portion of the price is her marketing efforts. It’s like Clooneys tequila he’s tied to that for years with deferred money in future years to get to the billion dollar amount. We don’t know her deal but it may include that.

    • LNG says:

      There is a ridiculous amount of money to be made internationally, and Coty can help her do that in a way that she probably can’t or isn’t willing or able to do on her own ($$$$$). She’s giving up 51% of what she has now, but keeping 49% of what will likely be a much larger company. And with a cool $600 mil in her pocket, most of the risk will be Coty’s, not hers.

    • Susan says:

      When a business person starts a company, they always have to consider how to liquidate the value of that business. There are really only two ways: (1) going public and listing the shares on a publicly traded market and (2) selling the business. It’s the nature of business. It’s not fair to insinuate there must be something wrong with selling part of the business. That’s the nature of the beast and how you convert your successful business into cash.

    • Can’tbe says:

      Yes if you only want to do part of it. Which is what that sound like. Get the money while you can. Bad news for her company growing Coty hasn’t been great at growing companies lately.

    • Moneypenny says:

      Ask the internet paper millionaires who didn’t sell before everything went bust. They have nothing to show for it.

      Not everyone can, or wants to, run an operation like that. I think this was a smart move. She may have been worth $1 billion on paper, but that is all kind of fake. This $600 million is very real.

  8. Flamingo says:

    Holy cow! If I were her, I’d pack up and go live a nice private life somewhere.

  9. Lizzie says:

    please do a celeb fragrance ranking. jlo glow is #1 with a bullet but i’d love to see where britney spears curious lands. every single girl in my dorm wore it….all 8 floors. it smelled like a cotton candy factory.

  10. HK9 says:

    Lucifer’s homegirl hits another home run.

    • JoanCallamezzo says:

      Kris has made some epic business mistakes but when she gets it right they are homeruns.

    • lisa says:

      What do you think Kris’s cut is…..10% / $60M?

      • ME says:

        It doesn’t really matter what Kris’s cut is since Kylie and her siblings will have a huge inheritance to split and will get that 10% fee back one day.

  11. JoanCallamezzo says:

    What an enviable situation to be in, damn. Kim must be a little jealous. I know Kylie’s not going to use any of that money for a proper education but FYI it’s my team and me, not me and my team.

    • Wilady says:

      I don’t think the order of me and my team matters at all, grammatically.
      ?

      • amayson1977 says:

        Grammatically it is always “X and me” or “X and I” whether it’s another person or a plural group as in this case. You always put yourself/your personal pronoun after the other person/people.

  12. Sayrah says:

    Wow. That’s amazing

  13. Snowslow says:

    The only thing she added was a name.
    It’s neither gender bending, ethnic and albino friendly and especially it is not researched to be sustainable.
    The make-up / cosmetic industry is highly polluting and no one gives a damn.
    I will not congratulate someone because she rode on her family’s name and made money from her and other people’s insecurities.
    I will live by Tracee Ellis Ross’s motto from now on: “My beauty routine is more about how I feel than how it transforms me into some version of myself that I can’t keep up with.”

    • Lizzie says:

      how are you going to knock someone who rode their family’s name to be in the highly polluting cosmetic industry by name dropping a celebrity that rode their family’s name who just got into the cosmetic industry?

      i mean – i love tracee ellis ross and think she’s talented AF but she’s diana ross’s daugther and her father is a major, major music manager. she didn’t make it on her own any more than kylie jenner…i’m sorry to say.

      • Slowsnow says:

        Lizzie… it’s the whole sentence and not the tiny bit. It’s ok to work your contacts (a lot of people have them one way or another). Tracee is not working on anyone’s insecurities and is producing art. She is not a parasite is what I’m saying. She actually has a hair line called Pattern and I was a bit sad to see that the bottles do not seem zero waste but sheer plastic to be fair.

    • olive says:

      can you share more about kylie’s line not being albino friendly? i tried to google it to find more but your comment was one of the top results.

      • Slowsnow says:

        When Rihanna worked on her own line to complement all colour types she included albinos for the first time ever (at least that is what I read). It was highly talked about. Maybe google Rihanna + cosmetics + make up?

    • BorderMollie says:

      Well said! The makeup industry runs on creating insecurities to sell literally toxic products. Whenever makeup is discussed in the mainstream press, it’s always some variation of ‘it’s ok to wear makeup’ like yeah no kidding. Let’s talk about the consumerism and unattainable standards of the biz instead.

    • Weslyn says:

      Please don’t ever put Tracee and Kylie in the same sentence. I’d like some receipts that Kylie has ever truly been involved (other than the horrible photo spreads every now and again)

  14. Pixie says:

    I’m pretty ashamed to live in a world wherein the largely talentless children of millionaires get to become billionaires, by exploiting the unrealistic beauty standards that they set. I couldn’t imagine being comfortable with this much money, knowing how much poverty there is in the country and the world. IMO This isn’t the kind of stuff we should be celebrating.

    • ME says:

      The fact she she lied about her lips to get young girls to buy her sh*t is what really bothers me. Her lipkits sold because she all of a sudden had nice full lips and told everyone it was due to lip liner when in reality it was injections. Earning money this way is not going to do Kylie well. Also, her skin care line didn’t do as well did it? I think the lip kits were a one time thing and I don’t think she can replicate that again. I think that’s the real reason she sold majority of the company. She knows the profits won’t last forever.

      • Lucy2 says:

        Thank you!
        I’d be happier for her if the whole thing wasn’t built on a lie.

      • olive says:

        but we’ve all known for years & years now that her lips are artificially plumped by injections and the lip kits continue to sell. it seems like it’s a good product underneath the lies (aka advertising, which is built on outright lies, half truths, or obfuscating unflattering information).

      • ME says:

        @ Olive

        But she used lies to get people to try the product…that’s where the problem is.

      • olive says:

        @ME that’s just endemic in makeup and beauty advertising. models in mascara ads are wearing false lashes. models in foundation ads have their skin photoshopped to perfection. models in hair care ads for products promising volume have extensions in their hair. it’s all lies.

        the key is finding a product that can stand on its own despite the lies, and it looks like kylie has that. the lip kits didn’t stop selling once she admitted she had injections, they’re still selling well. people like them. BUT most importantly here, people aren’t buying them because they think it will give them bigger lips, they’re buying it because it’s a good lip color product.

      • ME says:

        @ Olive

        I know and that’s why there needs to be more rules/laws regarding advertising.

      • Jadedone says:

        I know they made a regulation that they couldn’t use false lashes for mascara commercials, maybe they need to go beyond that?

  15. lowercaselila says:

    Did you know that every time Kylie posts about a product or wears a product on Instagram she receives 1.2 million dollars. That is her going rate. She is also the youngest billionaire in the world estimated between 1 to 2 billion dollars and that is without the Coty transaction. She is her own business empire. I wonder how much is too much? Severe economic imbalance in the world.

    • Can’tbe says:

      Yes but it’s with owning 100 percent of her company validated at over 1 billion. It’s not like she has 1 billion in cash and then the 600 million. Most of her money was in the company. Curious how this deal works is it like Beats or Casamigos where they get it deferred in later years or all at once.

  16. Allergy says:

    I think this is ridiculous. I think this is disgusting. I think people are insane. I think this family is loathsome.

    • naomipaige99 says:

      I couldn’t agree more about this family.

    • jenner says:

      Thank you. The idea that this girl is not a trainwreck just because she has a lot of money from a business that she is clearly NOT the brains behind is very, very sad. She is so young and so manipulated and tweaked, insecure, codependent and lost. Little girl lost is what I think of when I see her. We really need to re-evaluate what we consider success.

  17. Trillion says:

    I’m over here like, “Coty still exists?”

  18. Monicack says:

    Other celebs have tried ventures and failed. Kylie has earned her success. She’s putting something out there that people are willing to pay for. That’s how it goes.

    • Pixie says:

      Lol @monikacack, there are millions of young girls smarter and more business savvy than Kylie who could have come up with way more products, of a better quality but who simply did not have all those resources available to them. Do you seriously believe Kylie would be where she is without her family’s money and connections? She got lucky, pure and simple. This is just the symptom of an unequal society where some people work hard and still starve, whilst others work less hard and make billions.

    • naomipaige99 says:

      LOL! Earned her success!!!!! LOL!!!!!! NOT!!!!!!!! If it wasn’t for her family name, she wouldn’t be as ‘successful’ as she is. If she was just some schmo of the streets, she wouldn’t be in this position at all. EARNED!!!! LOL!!!!

  19. BendyWindy says:

    I’m happy for her hustle, but no way would I have given them 51%. They can have 49.

  20. Lisa says:

    Smart business.

  21. clairej says:

    Cannot stand the family. But it is pretty funny that Kylie, the Rob of the daughters, is now the richest. Think she was only aiming to transform into Kim.2 but hit the jackpot along the way.

  22. Mar says:

    I am curious about something.

    Are these numbers reported by her team? I feel like we always get very inflated numbers when it comes to her empire.

    The makeup is awful quality and I only see it sold at Ulta. I just don’t get it

    • lisa says:

      I always thought her biz numbers were inflated too, but Coty is a publicly traded company and they must do their SEC reporting, so the numbers are now real. Funny that the Coty stock took a dump today lol

  23. naomipaige99 says:

    None of my hard earned money would ever go to anything this Klan was pushing.

  24. Ka Sal says:

    Good for her. As a mixed chick girl with naturally full lips, it makes me a little upset that her rise in the makeup industry was spawned by her artificial plumping as well as her severe insecurity. I have no reason to feel bad for Kylie, but I strongly am against changing your face to conform the current trends. Soon her furry eyebrows and exaggerated bug eyes won’t be in vogue. I love makeup. It’s great for covering your pores and slight imperfections. It’s great for covering those stubborn dark circles and shadows. But to change your face? What does that say to young women?

  25. JustMe says:

    Its a check in the win column for Kylie and for Coty. She gets access to a market she might not have and they get her 150 million followers without paying huge marketing dollars.

    As someone noted above I think she was struggling to duplicate the success of the lip kits with her other products and she lost some fans when she did Playboy . And maybe shes losing interest now that her sisters are moving into similar streams..its not just HER thing anymore.

    But she’s not near as clever as she seems to think – when your new bff shows up sporting the exact same tits and ass as you, even her hardcore fans were calling them out on it. At least the bff admits her surgeries…kylie still on her period lol And the funniest thing is her former bff being mostly natural looks way better than either of them with their plastic surgery

  26. Zeek says:

    Coty? Adios to the quality.

  27. JanetFerber says:

    Money for nothing. Just like the song. I bet that she has never lifted a finger to do anything for “her” company. She has the “name,” others do the work. She gets the money.

  28. Grey says:

    Isn’t it just fucking lipstick that I can buy at Walgreens, like any other makeup? I don’t wear makeup myself, but why are people buying this crap??

  29. minnie mouse says:

    All I have to say is “YOU GO GIRL.” Keep up the good work, and keep making the world beautiful.
    Here’s to you Miss Jenner.