More companies have expressed an interest in buying Body Shop.

Cosmetics giant L'Oreal has already revealed it is considering making an offer for the company, founded in Brighton by Anita Roddick and her husband Gordon.

Now Lush, the natural cosmetics group, which first held talks with Body Shop five years ago about a takeover deal, has confirmed it is "looking at the situation".

Lush, based in Poole, Dorset, has annual sales of £48 million through more than 270 stores worldwide. The company invents, manufactures and sells fresh handmade cosmetics, each with its own imaginative name.

Among the Lush signature products are large, fragrant bath melts the size of tennis balls with names such as Big Blue Ballistic and Blackberry Bath Bomb.

Body Shop, which has its global headquarters in Littlehampton, has been the subject of almost continuous bid speculation since the late Nineties.

The company, which was opened in 1976 as a shop squeezed between two funeral parlours in East Street, Brighton, launched the concept of ethical trading and became a household name in the Eighties.

The firm now has 1,752 stores in 47 countries and employs around 1,500 people at its headquarters in Littlehampton.

But dramatic over-expansion by the chain famed for concoctions such as peppermint foot lotion, brought Body Shop to its knees in the Nineties.

Despite no longer having a formal role, the attitude of the Roddicks will be decisive.

Mrs Roddick has a 9.3 per cent stake in the business, valued at £570.5 million, and her husband Gordon has an 8.7 per cent stake.

The couple stand to make £120 million if it is sold to L'Oreal.

Monday, February 27, 2006