Hut Group sales soar again, THG Beauty to be listed separately

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 16, 2021

The Hut Group continued to go from strength to strength in the first half of the year with group revenue rising almost 45% to £958.8 million year-on-year, and rising 95% compared to the first six months of 2019 (2YoY). Adjusted EBITDA for the group was up 38.6% on the year to £81.2 million.

It also announced that its THG Beauty operation is to be separated and listed on a public share-trading exchange in 2022, although it had no other details. And it said that nine companies across the SoftBank Group portfolio are partnering with its THG Ingenuity operation, driving increased THG revenue and enhanced platform functionality, “with a healthy pipeline going forward underpinning the collaboration agreement”.

Looking at the performance numbers for some of its divisions shows just how well it’s doing. In H1, THG Beauty revenue rose 55.9% to £160.8 million YoY and 145.8% 2YoY.

THG Ingenuity also rose 39.7% YoY to £85.8 million and 43.9% 2YoY. In the half it launched 50 end-to-end, fully localised and serviced websites across 22 territories for existing and new THG Ingenuity clients, with over 95% of clients using its global fulfilment network, delivering 165.5% Ingenuity Commerce revenue growth in H1 to £18.3 million. Over 70, end-to-end, fully localised and serviced brand sites are scheduled to launch in H2.

During the first half, THG shipped over 20 million orders to 195 countries as consumers continued to migrate their shopping habits online.

Returning customers generated 76% of direct-to-consumer H1 2021 group revenues, “reinforcing the repeat nature of our digital brands, Ingenuity's frictionless retailing environment and the enduring nature of consumer channel shift to online”.

It saw increasing US participation at 19% of group revenue following strong organic growth across beauty and nutrition, and the acquisition of Dermstore, the speciality retailer of prestige skincare online. This has now been fully migrated to the Ingenuity platform ahead of schedule, with all THG Beauty own brands expected to be available to purchase at dermstore.com by the end of the year.

Executive Chairman and CEO Matthew Moulding said: “I am delighted to announce a strong first-half performance across all divisions, as we continue to invest significantly in support of our strategic growth ambitions.

“In May, we announced the financial and trading partnership opportunity with SoftBank, one of the world's leading technology investors. We are only at the start of this relationship, but we are pleased to have already established multiple live commercial partnerships between the SoftBank portfolio and our Ingenuity platform. We continue to see an acceleration in levels of enquiry from global enterprises looking to leverage the Ingenuity platform, and I believe the global growth opportunity for Ingenuity to be unparalleled.

“Today we also update on the roadmap to separating our key trading divisions, and announce our commitment to list THG Beauty in 2022, which we believe will create further value for our shareholders.”