Naked Wines sells Lay & Wheeler business for £11.3m

Naked Wines has sold its Lay & Wheeler business to Coterie for £11.3m in cash.

Chief executive officer Rowan Gormley said: "Following the disposal of Majestic Retail and Commercial, I am delighted that we have also secured an independent future for Lay & Wheeler and its employees.

"We look forward to our future as a much simplified and growth orientated company continuing to focus on the huge opportunity ahead of us."

Broker Liberum pointed out that following this latest sale, all legacy businesses have now been sold.

It said Naked achieved "another great price" for Lay & Wheeler.

"This means initial cash inflow of £89.3m (£78m + £11.3m for Majestic Wines and Lay & Wheeler respectively). An additional £5m is deferred for two years and £12m deferred for five years. There is a further potential for £5m to come from the sale of a freehold property.

"These funds will be used to pay down debt of £25m and circa £4m for ‘late payment’ (though the company refer to it as a special) of a dividend. This means the company should have £65.3m of cash on hand, but taking into account investment to support working capital and next year’s cost to acquire Naked Wines customers, this number could be closer to circa £50m."

At 1030 BST, the shares were down 1.6% at 250p.