THG to return to growth this year after in-line 2024

(Sharecast News) - Ecommerce group THG said it expects a return to growth in 2025 for its remaining businesses after the demerger of its tech division Ingenuity, with underlying trends picking up in its end-markets.

THG, which operates online brands in the beauty and nutrition space, said full-year results for 2024 are expected to be in line with consensus estimates.

Revenues from the remaining business totalled �493.7m in the fourth quarter, down 5% on the year before, with a 1.3% decline in the beauty division to �348.4m and a 12.7% drop in nutrition to �145.2m.

That takes annual revenues for the nutrition and beauty divisions at �1.68bn, down 2.5% on 2023, but just 0.4% lower if exchange rates were flat. When including �191.8m of sales from the Ingenuity arm, total revenues were �1.88bn, down 0.9% year-on-year but 1.1% higher at constant currency.

The second half saw "improving underlying trends" in the nutrition business, particularly in the UK. Meanwhile, promotional discipline is said to have supported increased order profitability and margin expansion in beauty.

Looking ahead, the continuing business should grow revenues by a mid-single digit percentage in 2025, "given continued confidence in prestige beauty demand across our key markets, and a return to growth in Nutrition, evidenced by a much-improved start to the year across online and offline channels".

THG said the splitting of the company as materially reduced gross leverage, with around �550m of cash and available facilities as of 31 December.

The stock was down 1.7% at 38.8p by 0845 GMT.