L'Oréal to buy 8 percent of its shares from Nestle

PARIS, France - L'Oréal will buy 8 percent of its capital for 6.5 billion euros ($9 billion) from Swiss consumer goods group Nestle, boosting the French cosmetics group's earnings per share by more than 5 percent.

The deal will cut Nestle's stake in L'Oréal to 23.29 percent from 29.4 percent while the Bettencourt Meyers family's stake in L'Oréal will increase from 30.6 percent to 33.31 percent, the company said in a statement.

The transaction will be partially funded through the sale by L'Oréal to Nestle of its 50 percent stake in Swiss dermatology pharmaceuticals company Galderma - a 50-50 joint venture between L'Oréal and Nestle - for an enterprise value of 3.1 billion euros (2.6 billion euros of equity value), paid by Nestle in L'Oréal shares (21.2 million shares).

The remainder, corresponding to 27.3 million L'Oréal shares held by Nestle, will be paid in cash for 3.4 billion euros. In a separate statement, Nestle said it would use the cash proceeds to launch a share buyback, without disclosing details.

The price per L'Oréal share retained for this transaction is 124.48 euros, corresponding to the average of its closing prices between Nov. 11, 2013 and Feb. 10, 2014.

All the shares bought back by L'Oréal will be cancelled.

In order to reflect the change of Nestle's stake in L'Oréal's governance, the number of Nestle representatives on L'Oréal's board of directors will be cut from three to two directors.