Naked Wines boss steps down on earnings and revenue warning

Founder Rowan Gormley will take over until a permanent successor can be found.

Founder Rowan Gormley said the underperformance was disappointing (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Archive)

The boss of Naked Wines quit his post with immediate effect on Tuesday after the company downgraded its outlook on the back of a weak performance in the US.

Founder and chairman Rowan Gormley will take over the running of the business until a permanent replacement for Nick Devlin can be found.

Naked said that its revenue will drop between 12% and 16% this year, compared to previous guidance of an 8-12% fall.

Underlying earnings are expected to be £2-6 million, compared to previous guidance of £8-12 million. It made £16.3 million the year before.

My view is that this shortfall is largely to do with execution, which in turn is largely due to Nick Devlin splitting his time across both the role of CEO and US President.

Rowan Gormley

“It is disappointing to be warning of underperformance against a recent forecast,” Mr Gormley said

“While trading in the UK and Australia has been in line with the board’s expectations, current trading in the US has fallen well behind, both in terms of sales and margin. Customer attrition remains at historically low levels.”

The company said that Mr Devlin will continue as president of Naked Wines USA during the peak trading period over the winter. He will then leave the group completely.

Mr Gormley said: “My view is that this shortfall is largely to do with execution, which in turn is largely due to Nick Devlin splitting his time across both the role of CEO and US president.”

He added: “I am sad to see Nick go, but his legacy remains.

“Naked Wines revenue has grown 50% since he took the CEO role, and Nick leaves with a lot of the hard turnaround work completed, including testing some exciting improvements to our customer proposition, which we are testing at scale right now.

“He goes with our best wishes.”

Naked Wines said that revenue had dipped 20% in the US during the first half of the financial year, compared to an 11% dip in the UK and 19% in Australia.