The Hut Group results show its rising dominance continues

By Lucy Whitehouse

- Last updated on GMT

The Hut Group results show its rising dominance continues
The Hut Group (THG), a rising dominant player in e-retail for beauty, has released its annual financial results for the year ending December 2017, which saw group sales up a hefty 47%.

THG describes itself as one of the world’s largest online beauty and wellbeing businesses, and is set for ambitious expansion on the back of its strong results for last year.

Matthew Moulding, Chief Executive Officer of The Hut Group, commented: “2017 was a year of significant development and growth for The Hut Group, as we invested in our infrastructure, our technology platform, our people and our brands.

“THG is now firmly a global player and it is particularly pleasing to see over 70% of Group sales coming from overseas, and 58% of total sales being of our own brands.

“With our growing, talented workforce, our leading brands and our cutting-edge technology and infrastructure, we look forward to a further year of growth in 2018​.”

Financial Highlights

The following have been picked out by THG as its financial highlights from its end of year reporting.

  • Group sales up 47% to £736m (2016: £501m)
  • International Sales up 62% to £512m (2016: £317m), constituting 70% of Group sales
  • Gross Profit increased by 51% to £318m (2016: £211m)
  • EBITDA1 up 38% to £69m
  • Strong growth in brand revenues, with 58% of Group sales coming from own brands
  • Group sales CAGR of 49% and EBITDA CAGR of 52% for the period 2015-2017
  • In May 2018, the Group increased its banking facility to £600m, for use in significant strategic initiatives and further potential M&A

Operational Highlights

Further to the financial highlights, the company also noted its operational highlights as the following:

  • £164m in strategic acquisitions during the year, enhancing the Group’s end-to-end retail ecosystem, building its brand proposition, and developing the geographical reach of its beauty supply chain. Acquisitions included Hangar Seven and UK2 – a digital content agency and web-hosting business respectively – ESPA, Illamasqua, RY.com.au and Europe’s largest subscription beauty box supplier, GLOSSYBOX
  • £39m of capex was spent on physical infrastructure projects including manufacturing, distribution, supply chain and office facilities. This included two food production and distribution facilities which became fully operational in 2017 – a 1m sq. ft. Cheshire based facility (Omega) and a US facility in Kentucky – in addition to the commissioning of a production and logistics centre in Poland, bringing next-day delivery to continental Europe
  • £25m of investment in the Group’s proprietary technology platform, THG Ingenuity, further enhancing its functionality and globalisation capability. THG’s platform now operates on 35 languages and 42 currencies, is supported by 32 payment options and delivers to 193 territories
  • Work begun on a new c870,000sq. ft. Head Office at Manchester Airport. The work will be completed in stages over the next two years and will ultimately house around 10,000 employees

THG was also awarded the UK’s Queen’s Award for Enterprise​ this year in the International Trade Category.

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