Avon Products

Robert M. Bass Group, the Texas takeover unit, said today that it and partners hold 5.9% of embattled Avon Products Inc., the cosmetics concern Wall Street suspects is in play once again. Shares of Avon rose as much as $2.375 before falling back to $36.375, a gain of $1 in midday trading. Avon was one of the most heavily traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, with about 500,000 shares changing hands. Another investment group, Chartwell Partners, holds at least a 6.

Avon Products Inc.'s Andrea Jung, the face of the door-to-door cosmetics seller for 13 years, will step down as executive chairwoman after a tenure that encompassed slumping earnings, a foreign-bribery investigation and a takeover attempt. Jung, 54, who was chief executive from 1999 until April, will leave at the end of the year and continue as a senior advisor to the board beginning Jan. 1, New York-based Avon said Friday in a statement. Fred Hassan, a lead independent director, will succeed her and become non-executive chairman.

Avon Products said Thursday that it intends to sell its Mallinckrodt medical products and chemicals division, buy back up to 25% of its stock and pay off some of its short- and long-term debt as part of a restructuring program begun last year. "The divestiture is part of Avon's strategy to concentrate on consumer products and to continue to expand its health-care services business," Hicks Waldron, chairman and chief executive of New York-based Avon, said in a statement. The St.

Best Buy Co.'s Chief Executive Brian Dunn has resigned from the struggling electronics giant, the company said Tuesday. There was no bad blood affecting the decision, according to Best Buy, “no disagreements … on any matter relating to operations, financial controls, policies or procedures.” Instead, Dunn's departure was part of a “ mutual agreement ” of the necessity “to address the challenges that face the company.” ...

Directors of Avon Products approved plans to sell to Japanese investors up to 40% of its Japanese beauty products subsidiary. It also approved plans to seek a buyer for its direct response clothing catalogue division in New York. Avon expects the sale of a minority interest in its Japanese subsidiary to generate more than $200 million.

Avon Products Inc. said it has permanently stopped using animals in its product safety tests, becoming one of the first major cosmetics makers to do so. Animal rights activists praised Avon and said they hope its decision will encourage other companies to halt animal testing as a way of measuring a product's effectiveness and safety. The beauty products company said it will rely on alternative non-animal testing methods.

The company, which employs about 1,800 workers in the St. Louis area, was sold by Avon Products to International Minerals & Chemical Corp. of Northbrook, Ill. Avon, which purchased Mallinckrodt in 1982 for $712 million, will take a $100-million loss on the sale, a spokesman said, mostly in an accounting loss and the payment of capital gains tax. Mallinckrodt is a chemical and medical products company with about 5,000 employees worldwide.

There'll be no lipstick-sharing - yet - between Rimmel owner Coty Inc. and Avon Products Inc. after Avon rejected Coty's $10 billion cash bid Monday. Coty's attempt to buy Avon at $23.25 a share (a 20% premium over the Friday closing price) was both public and unsolicited. In a snippy note on its website, Avon said the offer “is opportunistic and not in the best interest of Avon's shareholders.” Coty had also made another, private overture less than two weeks earlier “that was substantially the same,” according to the note.

Makeup has been a massive seller this year as beauty-minded customers picked up 117 million units of various products, worth about $2.8 billion, a report said. Over the first 10 months of 2011, dollar sales of makeup jumped 8% while unit sales rose 5% compared with the same period last year, according to research firm NPD Group. Every segment saw dollar growth. Nail product sales swelled 59% year-over-year while eye products increased 10%. Lip products earned manufacturers 8% more revenue while facial cosmetics were on a 7% upswing.

Question: I am disappointed with my shares of Avon Products Inc. What do you think is next for the company? Answer: Investors expect the stock of a brand-name company to be sturdy and reliable through all market conditions, come rain or shine. But the prospects of the world's largest direct marketer of cosmetics, fragrances and skin care have been cloudy, with some storm activity. Avon markets to women in more than 100 countries through about 6.5 million independent sales representatives.

Avon Products Inc., the world's largest door-to-door cosmetics seller, said 2,500 to 3,000 positions would be eliminated as part of a new restructuring program designed to create annual savings of about $200 million by 2013. The job cuts, which may account for as much as 7.1% of the New York company's workforce, will take place over the next four years, executives said at a consumer analyst conference in Boca Raton, Fla.

About 870,000 Fun N' Games magnetic dartboards, made in China and imported by Henry Gordy International Inc., were recalled because small magnets on the darts can detach and young children can swallow them, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said. If more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract one another and cause internal damage. The products were sold at Family Dollar stores nationwide from September 2002 through last month. For more information, go to www.cpsc.gov.

Avon Products Inc. said it would cut 2,400 jobs as part of its multiyear restructuring plan, which will cost more than originally expected and ultimately save the beauty-products maker $430 million annually. The New York-based company, which sells beauty products directly to customers, operates in 100 countries through more than 5 million independent sales representatives. Avon said it would take a charge of $120 million in the fourth quarter for restructuring some international direct selling operations and realigning supply-chain operations in Western Europe and Latin America.

Avon Products Inc. said it would cut 2,400 jobs as part of its multiyear restructuring plan, which will cost more than originally expected and ultimately save the beauty-products maker $430 million annually. The New York-based company, which sells beauty products directly to customers, operates in 100 countries through more than 5 million independent sales representatives. Avon said it would take a charge of $120 million in the fourth quarter for restructuring some international direct selling operations and realigning supply-chain operations in Western Europe and Latin America.

Avon Products said it would pay at least $220 million for Wellesley, Mass.-based Mediplex Group, which operates 11 nursing homes and manages three alcohol- and drug-abuse treatment facilities. Mediplex also provides consulting services, develops health-care facilities and plans to manage a psychiatric care hospital opening next month. New York-based Avon, a major cosmetics and toiletries firm, has been restructuring in recent years to focus on its beauty and health-care businesses.

Sixteen-year-old Nicolle Hudson and her friends love Avon makeup. At school, they look over the brochures, picking out lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, which is just in their price range, about $4 to $8 each. Hudson, of Waldorf, Md., even finds her favorite perfume, Millennia, through Avon. "When I was little, I always thought it was something for old women and stuff," Hudson said of Avon products, which her mother sells. "Now the books are focused on teenagers and younger women.

Stock Exchange lets readers listen in as Times staff writers James Peltz and Michael Hiltzik debate the merits of individual stocks. Xerox (XRX) Jim: Well, Mike, here's a company you actually know a little something about. Mike: Finally! Jim: Xerox, of course, is the famed maker of copiers and printers. But to me, Xerox also stands out as being the one Fortune 500 company that always seems to be undertaking one restructuring after another. It's in constant turmoil.