Warpaint London raises guidance and widens Tesco rollout

Warpaint London has raised its guidance following “stronger than anticipated” trading in the second half of its financial year.

The specialist supplier of colour cosmetics and owner of the W7 and Technic brands, now expects sales for the year ended 31 December 2020 to be not less than £40m – well ahead of the £37m previously anticipated by the board.

Unaudited adjusted profit from operations, excluding a non-cash accounting charge on forward foreign exchange options for 2021, is now expected to be in excess of £2.6m.

The group, which will release its results for the year ended 31 December 2020 in April 2021, imports most of its finished goods from China paid for in US Dollars and to help mitigate risk, forward foreign exchange options are entered into.

The Pound/US Dollar exchange rate at the end of December 2020 will result in a non-cash charge and as a result it is the board's expectation that, subject to audit, adjusted profit from operations for the year ended 31 December 2020 will be in excess of £2.2m - at least 10% ahead of its previously stated guidance of £2m.

The Company's net cash balances as of 31 December 2020 totalled £4.9m.

The news comes just ahead of the rollout of a range of 15 W7 cosmetics products to 469 Tesco Express stores, following successful initial sales in 209 Express stores late last year.

This is in addition to the core range of 190 of the Group's W7 products currently being sold in 56 Tesco Extra stores and the four new lines currently being introduced by Tesco into 605 Tesco Extra stores and Tesco supermarkets.