Torre Puig-T1 and T2, two steel-and-glass towers that sit against Barcelona’s skyline like architectural exclamation marks, are monuments to the 111-year-old Spanish beauty empire they house. The symbolism is hardly subtle. Puig (pronounced “poodge” – with difficulty for anyone outside Spain), ranks 10th globally among beauty giants, with three fragrances – Rabanne’s 1 Million, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Male and Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl – currently in the world’s top 10. The top floor of T1 is the domain of Marc Puig, the grandson of the founder and the group’s chairman and CEO.
Today, the 63-year-old, who has led the company since 2004, looks as clean-cut as a banker on a casual Friday in a white shirt (top button undone, no tie), taupe suit and his signature rectangular specs. He’s keen to talk shop and not reveal too much about himself: “My role is as the head of this company, and whatever I do personally isn’t of interest.”
Puig is still small fry compared with L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, which have market capitalisations of €193bn and $31bn respectively. But its CEO’s strategy has posted consistent growth: revenue has soared by more than 10 per cent to €4.79bn in 2024. Building on the headway Marc’s father Mariano and uncle Antonio made in fashion in the 1960s, when the company began working with Paco Rabanne and later with Carolina Herrera, Puig has snapped up some of the most exciting names in fashion and fragrance. Today, Puig owns 14 brands and three licences, having acquired 11 new ones in just over a decade. The acquisition of Dries Van Noten in 2018 was followed by Byredo in 2022; investments in L’Artisan Parfumeur and Penhaligon’s were both made in 2015.
Marc Puig remains a relatively mysterious figure. The family fortune – worth $9.7bn, according to Bloomberg – exists without the theatrics of luxury’s other dynasties. No Arnault-style succession dramas or Pinault art temples dominate the newspapers. The only hobby Puig will concede to having is sailing.
His grandfather, Antonio, would have approved. The Catalan businessman started out in 1914 with a modest perfume-distribution company, before venturing into product development. All four of his sons went on to work in the family-owned businesses. He was always clear about his own succession plans, says Marc: “He retired relatively early because he felt his sons were better prepared. He let go.”
One of Antonio’s triumphs included the bestselling cologne Agua Lavanda Puig, which was launched in 1940. This month, the cologne’s Balearic jug-inspired flacon, designed by André Ricard, has been reissued for Puig’s Colonias Absolutas line. The group tapped French perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, best known as the in-house perfumer at Hermès for 12 years, to reinterpret three heritage scents, plus a new addition, Agua Mediterránea, as a tribute to the family heritage.
But change is afoot. Last April, Puig rang the bell for the group’s highly anticipated IPO, which raised €2.6bn in capital. At one point, there were five family members on the company board; now only Marc and his first cousin, Manuel Puig, 63, who serves as vice chairman, remain. None of the fourth generation – his children included – will have any future role in running the company. (The family continues to own 73 per cent of the business and 93 per cent of the voting rights.)
In July, the group reported its quarterly sales rose eight per cent; EMEA remains its main market, but sales in the Americas climbed 10 per cent in the quarter, while sales in Asia rose 19.5 per cent. “I believe that beauty will continue to grow faster than the global economy, because it’s an affordable luxury, an accessible way into brands that many people cannot otherwise afford,” Puig says. In a 2025 report, McKinsey and Business of Fashion predicts that the global beauty market will grow five per cent annually through to 2030. Still, market volatility persists and the IPO’s lacklustre reception continues to cast a shadow – shares stumbled from the gate and have yet to recover their footing.
“Puig stands out in its sector as a family-controlled company that was built as a fragrance business, and successfully diversified into higher-growth categories of the prestige beauty market,” says François-Xavier de Mallmann, chairman of Goldman Sachs EMEA and chairman of investment banking, which worked on the IPO with Puig. “The focus now is on execution and consistent delivery in order to demonstrate that their business model can outperform the rest of the industry over the medium and long term.”
“In family businesses, the most risky moment is the generational transition,” Puig says. “Being forced to be accountable to the market was a way to balance the power of the family. We were part of a generation of cousins who knew each other very well: we went to the same school, we spent holidays together… With the next generation, it’s a different scenario.” Still, he is keen to stress continuity. “We want to maintain a role in this project – we’re not going anywhere. The family protects the values and the long-term development; the market ensures we don’t go in the wrong direction. Let’s see if it works.” In the week that Rupert Murdoch confirmed that his son Lachlan will take control of his media empire, valued at $3.3bn, I have to ask if he has seen Succession. He smiles diplomatically: “Yes, the characters were very theatrical… Families come in all shapes and sizes, and no one is perfect.”
Marc’s role within the family business was pre-ordained. He began working on the production line in 1986 and had a stint as a salesman, incognito under his mother’s name, before his ascent to the executive suite. His strategy has been ruthless: jettison the soaps and deodorants, zone in on the premium. “Twenty years ago, we were in many different categories,” he explains. “We decided to focus on a few key areas and excel in those.” The pivot paid off spectacularly – the group’s prestige selective fragrance market share (which includes Rabanne, Carolina Herrera, Jean Paul Gaultier and Nina Ricci), rose from three per cent to 11.5 per cent between 2004 and 2024.
Few of the Puig brands today are Spanish, although products are made in Puig’s two Spanish factories: fragrance in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, and skincare in Vacarisses, near Barcelona. The company operates seven factories worldwide; the balance of its fragrances is produced at its facility in Chartres, France.
What sets its portfolio apart from other major players is the singularity of each label. “We have a reputation for being good with founders. In many cases, they keep working with us until they retire,” says Puig. In terms of acquisitions, “we don’t try just to add volume; we are a curator of brands and we’re very careful to ensure that every brand we work with has a story to tell, has a soul, and has a reason to exist.” Adds José Manuel Albesa, the president of Puig beauty and fashion and deputy CEO: “We try to be very consistent and coherent and not please everyone. I think that’s what makes people loyal, because the brands are authentic.”
“Strategically, in terms of creativity in the premium beauty sector, Puig is simply the best,” says Charlotte Tilbury, chairman and president of Charlotte Tilbury Beauty. Tilbury kicked off Puig’s move into the lucrative arena of skincare and cosmetics: Puig took a majority stake in her business in 2020, and will assume full ownership of the brand by 2031. In 2024, it also acquired German skincare brand Dr Barbara Sturm; Rabanne and Carolina Herrera had already been nudged into the make-up space in 2020 and 2023 respectively. Revenue has more than tripled since Tilbury started working with the group. “It was so important to me to be part of an entrepreneurial group that respects both art and commerce and gives founders ongoing autonomy,” she adds.
But the group is still focused on fragrance. Last month, Carolina Herrera decamped from New York to Madrid Fashion Week, where its creative director Wes Gordon presented the SS26 collection – a gown-heavy offering on a 450m powder-pink runway – in the 17th-century Plaza Mayor. Afterwards, more than a thousand people attended the launch of the brand’s latest fragrance, La Bomba, the nickname Vogue editor Diana Vreeland gave Herrera in the 1970s. The 2025 iteration is fronted by model Vittoria Ceretti; its undeniably saccharine message of female empowerment is housed in a hot-pink, butterfly-shaped flacon. Ana Trias, chief brands officer, is betting it will be a “cultural phenomenon” like Good Girl, the fruity floral scent that comes in a distinctive stiletto-heel bottle and which dethroned long-time leader Chanel Chance as the bestselling women’s fragrance franchise in the US in 2024.
On the day of the event, Marc (visibly trepidatious about the growing RSVP list) spoke about the group’s capacity for risk-taking. “The stiletto bottle was unusual – who would buy perfume from a shoe?” he joked, adding, before being swept off to greet other guests: “Some years ago, we decided that the biggest risk for us was not to take any risks at all.”