Warpaint London flags better trading after annual loss

Warpaint London swung to an annual loss as revenue fell sharply during the Covid-19 crisis but the makeup company said trading had improved.

The owner of the W7 and Technic cosmetics brands reported a pretax loss of £1.1m for the year to the end of December from a £1.8m profit a year earlier. Revenue fell to £40.3m from £49.3m after many retailers selling Warpaint's products shut stores during the crisis.

Adjusted profit from operations more than halved to £2.5m from £5.6m. Warpaint proposed a final dividend of 3p a share taking the annual payout to 5.8p including a 1.3p special dividend in November after no final dividend was paid for 2019.

Warpaint said trading improved in the first quarter of 2021 and that sales in the first quarter were 9% up on a year earlier with sales up in all regions. Gross margin improved and the company is debt-free with £5.8m of cash.

Clive Garston, Warpaint's chairman, said: "I believe the group has weathered the pandemic storm well and has proved its flexibility and resilience in dealing with an unprecedented and unforeseeable situation. Trading improved in the second half of 2020 and we are pleased to report this trend has continued into the first quarter of 2021. I am optimistic that these encouraging trends will continue."

Warpaint has shifted its strategy to sell more products in stores where its customers shop. It has increased the number of branches of Tesco where W7 is sold and is selling Technic products in Wilko.

Shares of Warpaint fell 2.6% to 124.25p at 11:16 BST.