REXALL SHOWCASE INTERNATIONAL Review and History

REXALL SHOWCASE INTERNATIONAL no longer appears to be active as a direct sales company.

Rexall Showcase International is no longer active under that name. Its business was combined with Enrich International in 2001 to form Unicity.

Original Npros business profile for REXALL SHOWCASE INTERNATIONAL, preserved below for archival purposes:

Rexall Showcase International was established around 1990 as the network-marketing division of Rexall Sundown, a Boca Raton, Florida, manufacturer of vitamins, nutritional supplements, and consumer health products. The company introduced its distributor business model in 1991 and developed into a substantial international direct-selling operation. By 2000, Rexall Showcase reported approximately 120,000 active distributors, including 115,000 in 1999, with operations in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mexico.

Rexall Showcase marketed nutritional supplements, vitamins, weight-management products, natural health remedies, personal-care products, and specialized wellness formulations. Its best-known product was Bios Life, a fiber-based nutritional supplement promoted for cholesterol management. The products were sold directly to consumers through independent distributors rather than through Rexall Sundown's conventional retail channels.

The company used a multilevel compensation plan that paid distributors on personal product sales and sales volume generated through their downstream organizations. Distributors could recruit additional representatives, build sales groups, and qualify for commissions and leadership bonuses based on product orders and organizational volume. Rexall Sundown's SEC filings reported that distributor commissions comprised the majority of Rexall Showcase's selling and administrative expenses; commission expense increased by $7.8 million during the three months ended November 30, 1997, compared with the same period a year earlier.

Royal Numico acquired Rexall Sundown in 2000 in a transaction valued at approximately $1.815 billion, including $1.535 billion for the outstanding shares, $91 million for stock options, $114 million in assumed debt, and $75 million in transaction costs. In 2001, Rexall Showcase International and another Royal Numico direct-selling company, Enrich International, were combined to create Unicity. The Rexall Showcase name and rexallshowcase.com were discontinued, although several of its products, distributors, and operating markets continued under Unicity.