Rowan Gormley calls time on running Naked Wines

Start-up veteran Rowan Gormley on Thursday said he is calling time on leading Naked Wines and will leave when a £95 million sale of Majestic Wine completes.

Naked Wines’ Rowan Gormley will retire by the end of the year after the Christmas trading season is finished.

Naked Wines replaced the Majestic Wines name in August after Gormley sealed a £95 million deal to sell the “Majestic” retail store business to Fortress Investment Group.

Gormley, who also launched Virgin Money, founded online-only subscription business Naked Wines in 2008. It delivers alcohol to customers’ homes for as little as £20 a month. That helps crowdfund independent winemakers.

He today said: “Now it is time to hand over to a new team. It takes one set of skills to take a business from zero to £200 million of revenues, and it takes a different set of skills to build it from there.”

He will be succeeded by chief operating officer Nick Devlin.

First half revenues rose 15.6% to £87.5 million. Pre-tax losses grew to £6.2 million from £5.1 million after a number of investments.

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