Naked Wines’ losses deepen as it appoints new finance boss

Naked Wines has appointed a new finance chief as the loss making online wine seller seeks to restructure its business amid tumbling sales.

The London-listed company’s pre-tax loss widened to £16.3 million for the 12 months to April 1, up from £15 million the year before.

Sales fell 18% year-on-year to £290 million, as repeat business from existing customers fell to £63.5 million, down a quarter on last year.

Naked Wines also invested in its new customer acquisition, spending £23.3 million on getting new business, up 9% on the year before.

Despite the widening losses, chairman Rowan Gormley said Naked Wines is “making real progress turning things round”.

He said: “Now that the team has addressed the cost base and liquidity issues, we can focus our attention on the big prize… Restoring Naked Wines to profitable growth.

“With a new invigorated team looking at the challenge with a fresh perspective, I feel confident that we will see Naked fulfil its potential to revolutionise the DtC (direct-to-customer) wine market.”

The company has appointed Dominic Neary, the current finance boss at Mind Gym, as its new chief financial officer, set to join on November 11.

In the announcement, it said at Mind Gym Mr Neary “helped return the business to profitability, whilst building scalable global operations”.

It comes after a period of widening losses for Naked Wines, after rocketing inflation made it more expensive to operate the business.

The company cut 50 jobs in January, and even removed non-executive director Melanie Allen from the board.

The results statement pointed to one-off “costs associated with the ongoing restructuring of the business” as part of the reason for the widening loss, including the cost of reducing its staff numbers.

Naked Wines chief executive Rodrigo Maza, who joined in April, said the company has “made significant strides by strengthening our financial foundations, embedding resilient management practices, and importantly, crystallising a robust customer proposition”.

He said: “This proposition not only drives our mission to enable independently-minded wine drinkers to enjoy great wine without the guesswork but ultimately ensures long-term engagement and a competitive advantage.”