(Alliance News) - Naked Wines PLC on Wednesday reported a swing to interim loss despite sales rising. It also named a new chief financial officer.

Shares in the Norwich-based online wine seller were trading 7.0% higher at 104.06 pence on Wednesday in London.

For the 26 weeks that ended on September 26, Naked Wines reported total sales of GBP165.8 million, up 4.1% from GBP159.3 million a year before. However, it swung to a loss of GBP215,000 from a profit of GBP1.3 million, as finance costs rose to GBP565,000 from just GBP47,000 a year before.

General and administrative costs increased by 36% to GBP25.5 million from GBP18.8 million.

Chief Executive Nick Devlin says: "We announced in October our decisive plans to deliver profitability through reshaping our strategy. In the half we took the first steps to reduce our costs and drive improvements to our liquidity, profitability and unit economics in the near-term. Ultimately, we are laying the foundation for a return to our ambition of sustained, profitable growth, whilst also providing ourselves with greater resilience."

Looking ahead, Naked Wines said it will continue to operate on a reduced cost base in financial 2024. Marketing costs will remain "substantially lower than financial 2022 in financial 2024 unless there is a "marked improvement in customer recruitment economics". But it expects "stronger profitability in financial 2024".

The company expects revenue to be in the range of GBP340 million to GBP360 million in financial 2023.

Naked Wines confirmed Interim CFO James Crawford as permanent CFO and executive director, effective immediately and returning to a role he previously held. Crawford also has been serving as UK managing director, and Naked Wines now will recruit to fill that role.

Crawford served as finance director from 2014 to 2015 and group CFO from 2015 to 2020 before becoming UK MD. He has been with Naked Wines for almost nine years. Prior to that, he spent 14 years in various finance and business development roles at brewer and distiller Diageo PLC.

By Xindi Wei, Alliance News reporter

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