THG says trading improves, predicts profitability increase

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 21, 2023

E-tailer and tech specialist THG issued a trading update on Wednesday and said it’s seeing “strong profitability progression with cash generation ahead of expectations in H1 2023”.

While its full-year guidance remains unchanged, it’s clear that recent trading has improved with the company saying it had a strong Q2. 

A “significant increase in H1 2023 profitability is expected”, with adjusted EBITDA in the range of £44 million to £47 million, up from £32.3 million a year earlier.

Free cash flow performance for the 12 months to 30 June is “ahead of expectations” and the group remains “well on track to deliver free cash flow neutrality for the full year, with adjusting items materially lower than the prior year”.

In THG Beauty, its online retail platforms “have focused on profitable sales in markets where our localised infrastructure can deliver economies of scale. We expect further sales momentum in the second half of the year, supported by beauty manufacturing as the temporary industry-wide de-stocking comes to an end”.

Its e-commerce services offer, THG Ingenuity, also “continues to make good progress on building its client base across higher value enterprise accounts and its network of global strategic alliances and remains on track to add £1 billion incremental GMV to the platform across Technology, Digital and Operational services during FY 2023”. 

And in addition to partnerships with BigCommerce, AutoStore, PwC and Elastic Path announced to date, Ingenuity has recently partnered with Commercehub, one of the world's largest commerce networks, “to extend Ingenuity's marketplace solution and create a complementary, managed marketplace offering”.

The company had other announcements to make on Wednesday too.

It said that founder and CEO Matthew Moulding “has today transferred the Special Share held by him and, as a result, all rights of the Special Share have now ceased in accordance with THG's articles of association. The Special Share will be cancelled by THG”.

That share had given Moulding extra rights (such as being able to veto a hostile takeover bid), and its cancellation means it should be able to move from a standard stock exchange listing and join the ranks of the FTSE 250, which could boost its share price.

It also said it has beefed up its board with Helen Jones joining as an independent non-executive director, in addition to Iain McDonald stepping down from the Remuneration Committee to focus on his Sustainability and Nomination Committee commitments. Jones is an experienced FMCG exec.