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PARIS – Famille C Participations, the Courtin family’s investment company, has taken a 130-million-euro stake in Evok Collection, Pierre Bastid’s group’s hotel division.

“With this investment, Famille C Participations is implementing the strategy led by Prisca Courtin and her teams, naturally expanding its business into hotel experiences where well-being is central,” the two companies said in a release Tuesday morning.

Courtin is chief executive officer of Famille C Participations. The Courtin family founded and owns Groupe Clarins.

There’s been an increasing merging of the beauty and hospitality sectors in the recent past, as well-being seeps more profoundly into each. Crystalizing this, at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, where one executive, Stéphane Rinderknech, oversees the group’s 15 beauty brands as well as its hospitality division.

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Evok Collection was created by Romain Yzerman and Emmanuel Sauvage in 2014, as part of Bastid’s group. The goal was to develop a luxury proposition while offering special moments in life for people in its hotels and their neighborhoods. 

Famille C, with its Clarins spas for starters, and Evok Collection aim to develop jointly their vision of luxury hotels. They are targeting 15 new addresses owned and operated worldwide within five years. Evok Collection today has six such locations in Paris and Venice, and is readying two new hotels, in Madrid and in Rome.

Prisca Courtin

“The desire to innovate and modernize the luxury hotel industry is one of the keys to Evok’s success and one of the reasons for our partnership,” said Courtin in a statement, adding the new commitment “furthers our work in beauty and well-being, and embodies our ambition for the French art of living.”

Sauvage, managing director of Evok Collection, said a focus will be on the acceleration of the development of the group’s two leading brands: Nolinski and Brach.

Yzerman, managing director of Zaka, Bastid’s real estate company and owner of Evok, called Famille C Participations “an idea family partner with aligned values and mindset.”

He said that the 130-million-euro backing will allow for the selection of “exceptional assets, particularly in the Alps, Saint-Tropez, London, Milan, Ibiza, Corsica, Capri, the Amalfi Coast or Marrakech.

Famille C, begun in 2019, is the holding company owning Clarins and all of Clarins’ assets. Within this, there is Famille C Participations, which invests the Courtin family’s assets. Its tickets can range from 100,000 euros to billions of euros. The investment vehicle backs diverse companies, although the bulk are beauty-related.

The holdings are considered as tools to help the family business. Famille C Participations’ overarching goal is to become the leader in responsible beauty, with a coherent brand portfolio. 

On the pure beauty front, Famille C Participations owns Pai and Ilia, and has made minority investments in Joone and Ceremonia, all prestige brands.

Famille C has taken a minority share in Launchmetrics, a platform allowing the group to identify micro-influencers for launches. Investment has been made in Lumapps, a corporate intranet.

Famille C has also invested in biotech, to find alternatives to certain beauty product ingredients.

Some other investments include in Ecovadis, the universal sustainability ratings provider, allowing companies to manage their networks’ performances both upstream and downstream, and Le Collectionist digital platform, which enables people to rent luxury villas throughout Europe.