Majestic’s former e-commerce business Naked Wine is benefitting from the surge in online shopping during the pandemic with its revenues jumping 81% in April and May.
The bumper figures covered the first two months of its new financial year and were revealed alongside annual results.
Over the year to 30 March, the company’s pre-tax losses on continuing operations narrowed from £9.9m to £5.4m. Revenue increased by 13.7% to reach £202.9m as it continued to recruit new customers both in the UK and in the US.
Last August Naked Wines sold its Majestic Wine and Les Celliers de Calais businesses in a £95m deal. When the sale was completed in December 2019, Naked Wines became an entirely online business.
“I’m delighted to report a strong set of results to conclude a year of transition for Naked Wines,” said Chief Executive Nick Devlin.
“We are ending the year with great momentum behind our growth plans and a simplified, well-capitalised online pureplay model that is ideally suited to the current climate.
“I believe the enduring impact of Covid-19 will be to accelerate trends towards direct, online models in categories like wine and that Naked is well-positioned to deliver the combination of quality, value and community customers are looking for.”
Naked Wines also announced today that James Crawford, its current Chief Financial Officer, has been appointed as Managing Director of its UK business. He has been managing the UK business on an interim basis since November last year when the previous incumbent moved to the newly created role of Global Director of Wine.
Devlin commented: “In his long-standing role as CFO of Naked, James has guided the business through start-up challenges and along its rapid growth trajectory. Under his tenure, the Naked business has grown 4x in size, demonstrated its potential in the US market and navigated the challenges of transition to a listed environment.”
The company has now begun a search for Crawford’s successor.
