Hyflux Dips Toes into Wellness - Beauty Market

Hyflux invests S$8m in European firm Kaqun Europe to sell Elo Water, which has 3 times more oxygen than tap water.

In City Square Mall, a new store offering bath facilities opened its doors to shoppers two weeks ago.

One might dismiss the new shopfront as just another new face in the constant churning of the old that makes way for the new - part of the game of survival that is the competitive retail landscape in Singapore.

But far more heft lies behind this store in the suburban mall - the S$440 million company that is Hyflux, the darling of Singapore's water sector, better known for its desalination plants.

The Singapore-listed company will open Elo Lab officially on Sept 8. This marks the group's first foray into the brick-and-mortar retail sector with its budding consumer business.

More than that, it is also a physical representation of Hyflux's bet on the consumer water business - in particular, on a special oxygenated water termed Elo Water.

Said to contain three times more oxygen than tap water, Elo Water was the reason behind Hyflux's US$8 million investment in European firm Kaqun Europe in November last year. It also forms the basis for the group's new bath facilities, as well as bottled drinking water and skincare gels that it sells online.

"Oxygen can increase the cell's ability to generate more energy," Hyflux group chief financial officer Lim Suat Wah explained in an interview with The Business Times. "A cell with sufficient oxygen can actually generate 15 times more energy than a cell without sufficient oxygen. So this Elo Water puts the two together, the water element as well as the oxygen."

The venture into the consumer business came as Hyflux sought to see how water, besides being used for daily needs, could also be used to improve health.

It conducted in-house research and scoured the world's water technology startups. The search unearthed a company which produced similar oxygenated water in the US a few years ago, but the oxygen level in the water produced with their technology wasn't stable.

With Kaqun, however, Hyflux believes it has hit the jackpot: water that contains stable oxygen levels and can be easily absorbed into the body. This has been shown to reduce mental and physical tiredness, according to Kaqun's website.

The oxygenated water is said to have been developed from more than 10 years of research work by a group of doctors. Hyflux holds the exclusive rights to manufacture, sell and market Elo Water in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. It holds a 70 per cent stake in Elo Water Pte Ltd with Kaqun Europe owning the rest.

Hyflux has wasted no time. For a start, it has started clinical trials to test the properties of Elo Water. The first of these have just been concluded, with observations of improved skin condition after the use of Elo Gel.

The clinical study, conducted by Seoul-based clinical trial institute, involved 22 women aged 49 to 52 years old who applied Elo Gel every morning and night on half their face for eight straight weeks. During this period, skin wrinkles, colour elasticity, hydration and radiance were observed to be "significantly improved" on the side of their faces treated with Elo Gel.

Read full article at: Straits Times

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Taxonomy

• Medical & Health
• Skin Care
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Oxygen Therapy