Eve Sleep PLC (LON:EVE) signalled promising partnerships with major retailers to help “reset” the brand in the second half of the year after merger talks with Simba Sleep collapsed last week.
Cutting unprofitable products and slashing its marketing spend to 51% of revenues meant that underlying losses were halved to £5.9mln in the first six months of the year. Even so, revenues dropped 8%, from £14.1mln to £12.9mln in the six months until June-end.
Amid an “increasingly competitive” mattress market and tough retail backdrop, the AIM-listed company spooked investors last year with a series of strategic missteps that led to the ousting of founder Jas Bagniewski as chief executive.
Half-year results met the revised expectations from an update last week, with profits sinking 13% in the six months ending in June, and forecast revenues for the year decreasing to between £25mln and £27mln due to “worsening macro-economic conditions”.
Eve’s current aim is to “reset the business” and put investor worries to bed with “sustainable and profitable sales growth in the second half of the year,” announcing progress with new and existing retail partners.
Since June-end, the mattress maker has partnered with Argos and Dunelm, already generating revenue, added its products to a further 104 Next stores, and secured a contract with Homebase expected to launch imminently.
Jamie Sturrock, Eve’s chief executive, said that progress was “good” and the company will seek “organic improvements and inorganic opportunities" in its rebuild strategy.
Finncap market analyst Peter Smedley said that this was “always going to be a transitional year as EVE continues to lay the foundations for its ‘rebuild’ strategy”, and noted Eve’s openness to acquisition opportunities.