History
Ziva Gilad, a spa technician, came up with the idea of marketing Dead Sea mud after watching women tourists scooping up the mud to take home.[8] Ahava was founded in 1988 as a single stand selling bottles of body scrub to tourists, generating $1 million that year.[9] As of 2010, Ahava is the only cosmetics company licensed by the Israeli government that is legally permitted to mine raw materials at the Dead Sea.[8] On the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, there are approximately fifty small companies producing cosmetics, but only 15 have a global presence. Israel has imported raw materials for its Dead Sea mud cosmetics from Jordan since 1994.[2]
In 2009, Ahava took on new shareholder Shamrock Holdings, the investment company owned by Disney Family, which purchased 20% of Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories from its existing shareholders.[10][11] The company has 200 employees, 180 of them in Israel.[11]
In 2009, the company reported sales of nearly $150 million a year. In the United States, the largest overseas market for Ahava products, the company signed distribution deals with Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom and the beauty-supply chain Ulta.[8]
In 2011, Elana Drell Szyfer, former Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for Estee Lauder, was appointed general manager of Ahava North America.[12] In 2013, Szyfer left to work for Kenneth Cole Productions.[13]
As of 2011, Ahava's shareholders included Hamashbir Holdings, Gaon Holdings, Kibbutz Ein Gedi, Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem and Kibbutz Kalya. Of these kibbutzim, Mitzpe Shalem and Kalya are located north of the Green Line, in the West Bank.[14] As of 2015, Ahava is controlled by Gaon Holdings, the Livnat family and Shamrock Holdings who together own 53% of the company; Kibbutz Mitzpeh Shalem holds 35%, Kibbutz Kalia 5.8%, and a group of local kibbutzim another 6.7%.[3]
In 2015, the Chinese conglomerate Fosun International agreed to purchase a controlling share of the company, which as a whole has been valuated to ca. NIS 300 million (USD 77 million).[3]
In March 2016, under its new ownership, it was reported that Ahava is moving its factory at Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem to the Tamar Regional Council in order to avoid the EU directives against trade with companies operating in illegal settlements and pressure from the international BDS movement.[15] However, a statement given by Ahava announcing the opening of an additional facility at Ein Gedi did not mention the closure of the existing plant at Mitzpeh Shalem.[16]
