Naked Wine Share News (WINE)

(Alliance News) - Naked Wines PLC on Thursday said Chief Executive Rowan Gormley is going to be leaving following the "key" Christmas period.

Gormley's departure comes after an 18-month long succession planning process, the wine retailer said. He will stay on until the sale of the company's Majestic and Lay & Wheeler units.

Naked Wines announced the GBP95 million sale of Majestic Wine in August. The firm then changed its name to Naked Wines from Majestic Wine, with the remaining Naked Wines operations being purely online.

Replacing Gormley will be current Chief Operating Officer Nick Devlin.

Chair John Walden said: "On behalf of the board I would like to thank Rowan for his leadership of Naked Wines over the past decade. He has built a company with huge growth potential and with the structure and resources in place to achieve that potential.

"I am confident that with Nick as CEO, and with his strong team of leaders and dedicated staff, we will deliver significant value for shareholders and customers alike."

Naked Wines has also creating new leadership roles, the first developing strategic partnerships in the US and the second building relationships with winemakers across the globe. The firm said there is a "huge" opportunity in the US.

Norwich-based Naked Wines also Thursday reported 16% growth in revenue for the half-year to September to GBP87.5 million, though the pretax loss has widened to GBP6.2 million from GBP5.1 million. The adjusted pretax loss was GBP4.4 million from GBP2.1 million.

Revenue growth in the US was 24%, and Naked Wines said this business in trading well on all measures.

The company is not paying an interim dividend after a 2.0 pence per share returned a year prior. However, it will pay a 5.2p special dividend once its asset disposals are completed.

Outgoing CEO Gormley said: "Trading has been broadly on track in the first half. Naked's US business is well up on the key measures of investment, payback and sales.

"Consistent with our disciplined approach to investment we will slow the rate of increase of investment in new customers in the second half, due to sluggish performance in the UK and Australian markets."

Shares were 1.5% lower on Thursday in London at a price of 258.50 pence apiece.

By George Collard; georgecollard@alliancenews.com

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