Naked Wine Share News (WINE)

(Alliance News) - Naked Wines PLC on Friday reported surging annual revenue, helped by growth in the US and from a shift to online purchasing due to pub and bar closures because of the pandemic.

Revenue for the financial year ended March 29 grew 68% to GBP£340.2 million from GBP202.9 million, with "strong growth" across all geographies.

The US market saw particularly buoyant growth, where sales were up 78% to GBP161.7 million. The US now represents 48% of total sales.

The online wine retailer described a record performance in an "unprecedented year", after benefitting from the closure of pubs and bars for much of the year, as wine enthusiasts moved online.

Despite strong sales growth, Naked Wines posted a widening pretax loss of GBP10.7 million from GBP5.4 million the year before, which it said had been adversely impacted by the fair value adjustment of consideration from the sale of Majestic Wine in December.

Naked Wines announced the GBP95 million sale of its Majestic Wine and Les Celliers de Calaisin units in August. Following this, it changed its name to Naked Wines from Majestic Wine and became an entirely online business once the deal was completed in December.

"Since inception, our mission at Naked has been simple - to disrupt the wine industry for the benefit of customers, our winemakers and our people," commented Chief Executive Nick Devlin.

"In financial year 2021, we made significant progress towards this objective. It is clear to us that the pandemic has served to underscore the value of our business model in connecting winemakers and consumers directly and proven the opportunity before us."

Looking ahead, Naked Wines reaffirmed plans to increase its focus on the US, which it expects to drive continued sales growth going forward.

The first two months of its new financial year had seen resilient repeat customer sales growth, it said, up 30%.

Expected sales of between GBP355 million and GBP375 million are expected for financial year 2022, comfortably up on the prior year.

Naked Wines said it will not be paying a dividend for the financial year.

Shares in the company were down 0.3% at 791.00 pence each in London on Friday morning.

By Will Paige; willpaige@alliancenews.com

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