Naked Wines sales fly during lockdown as people stock up on booze

Naked Wines has performed well during the lockdown

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24 June 2020

THERE’s a management shake-up at Naked Wines today, alongside decent results which suggest the business did well under lockdown.

James Crawford, presently the chief financial officer, is to become managing director of the UK arm of the business, a role he has undertaken alongside other duties since November. That will now become permanent and full-time once a new finance chief is appointed.

Nick Devlin, Group CEO, said: “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.”

In the year to the end of March, sales rose 14% to £203 million. While the business is still making a loss, that loss fell by 46% to £5.4 million.

Naked said its performance was “positively influenced” by COVID-19. The scale of that should become clear in later results statements.

Brits in particular as assumed to have stocked up on booze as it became clear they were going to be shut indoors for some time.

Devlin admits the future is far from clear. He said: “Whilst predictions are harder than ever this year, I am excited about our plans for growth and confident that the mission of Naked to connect everyday wine drinkers to the world's best winemakers is more relevant than ever. 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 shares were up 3% this session.

The business has also taken on extra banking help. Jefferies International joins Investec as joint brokers.

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Naked Wines sales fly during lockdown as people stock up on booze

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