Majestic Wine sales boosted by Naked deal
Majestic Wine has uncorked a double digit sales boost following its purchase of Naked Wines last year, but reported a heavy fall in profits as acquisition costs weighed on the UK’s largest specialist wine retailer.
The wine merchant, which last year changed its chief executive following difficult trading, has been trying to revive sales through the £70m takeover of Naked Wines — the popular crowdfunding platform that has shaken up the way wine is sold. It has also scrapped its longstanding policy that customers had to buy at least six bottles of wine and is rolling out a click and collect service.
Like-for-like sales in Majestic stores were up 4.8 per cent — the first positive performance in four years.
But chief executive Rowan Gormley, the Naked Wines founder who took over at Majestic in April last year after his company was bought, warned “it is too early to be sure this is a trend rather than a bounce.”
Mr Gormley, a serial entrepreneur who also co-founded Virgin Money in 2008, said craft beer was selling particularly well — with sales up 10 per cent year-on-year, and that English wine “was at last having its day in the sun”.
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