Devlin Out as CEO at Naked Wines Following Disappointing Sales

Nick Devlin is out as CEO at London-based Naked Wines after the firm cut its forecast for full-year sales for 2024 to -12% to -16%. Previously revenue projections had been downgraded to between -8% to -12%.

Even more alarming, sales to new customers in the fiscal first quarter, ended June 30, were down 41% and to repeat customers had fallen 15%. U.S. sales in the second quarter were also disappointing the company 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 U.S. President,” said Rowan Gormley , who will be interim executive CEO while a new CEO is sought.

“To resolve this situation Nick has agreed to step down as CEO and I will move to executive chairman while we recruit a replacement. Nick has agreed to help with the transition and stay on as US President through peak.

Naked Wines revenue has grown 50% since Devlin took the CEO role, Gormley said, adding:

"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.”

Gormley said it "is disappointing to be warning of under-performance against a recent forecast. 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 's shares plunged 34% to 49.5 cents a share in early morning trading.