L'Oreal1. How did L'Oreal become the largest beauty company in the world? What role has acquisitions played in this growth? L'Oreal is the largest beauty company in the world and over the last 100 years of expansion has supplied products to 130 countries with offices in 58 different countries. This global company is the number one premium cosmetic product in the world today and has taken the heart and beauty of people's daily lives since 1907, the birth of L'Oreal. The superior leadership of a guy named Eugene Schueller started this strategic company with basic products like hair care and also the first artificial hair coloring product. Five years later you could find these products in Austria, Italy and the Netherlands. In 1934 Eugene invented the first mass market soap-free shampoo and this led to the success of L'Oreal in Europe which soon recognized it as a leader in body care and hair coloring products. Finally, right after World War II, L'Oreal moved to the United States and the company seemed to change. As L'Oreal expanded, competition became more involved and more growth was necessary for the company to be more successful. With issues like this, the strategy and planning applied at L'Oreal have been critical to the company's success. L'Oreal realized that to stay alive and succeed it needed to expand into other fields of the beauty market and target markets. This would mean that L'Oreal would need to acquire other companies as part of its expansion and in this way it has maintained the stability of the leading company by acquiring many smaller companies. Finally, in the 1980s, they began globalizing into new markets around the world by acquiring new companies that would give birth to the cosmetics we know today. Although the role of acquisitions has never been the main focus of the company, internal growth and strategy have been the main reason why L'Oreal has become such a big name. The main strategy was to adopt new companies and expand them from within, believing that the brand could be taken globally and benefit their overall brand portfolio. The main role of acquisitions has been to increase and lengthen the internal growth rate. L'Oreal began acquiring companies from the inception of their name. They started with the foundations of their own brands such as L'Oreal Professional, L'Oreal Paris, Kerastase and Club des Createurs de Beaute.