When Rowan Gormley reversed Naked Wines into Majestic Wine in 2015, his online subscription business was making £74 million in annual sales to 300,000 customers but had just clocked up £3.3 million in pre-tax losses.
Naked Wines was founded in 2008 and operates a crowdfunding model where subscribers receive exclusive wines at preferential prices. The idea behind the combination, at a cost to Majestic Wine of £70 million, was that it would bring together a premium online wine-selling service and a network of mid-price high street retailing warehouses.
As well as raising the prospect of introducing services such as click and collect at Majestic stores for Naked Wines customers, crucially the deal also gave Mr Gormley, 57, a balance sheet that he could use —