THG PLC Q4 2025 Earnings Call - Record H2 Growth Fueled by Core Focus and Strategic Streamlining

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us this morning. I’m delighted to report 2025 on a high, delivering our strongest quarter of the year and a record H2 that was 14% ahead of the top end of our guidance. This means that we enter 2026 with significant momentum. Our performance is a direct result of the strategic focus on core categories and territories and the incredible dedication of our teams. For the fourth quarter, the group delivered revenue growth of 7%, driven by a successful trading period over cyber that saw revenues climb by around 8% across November and December. The strong half two means we’ve delivered our first full-year growth since 2021, a testament to the business’s response to a tough macroeconomic backdrop these past few years. THG Beauty delivered an outstanding performance with Q4 revenue growth of 6.4%, well ahead of our guidance.

This was powered by exceptional results from Lookfantastic in the UK and Ireland, which grew by an impressive 16.2%. Our loyalty members continue to grow alongside spend per account, with customer retention rates at all-time highs, demonstrating the health of our customer base and the quality of the proposition supporting repeat purchasers. Our strategy to focus on core, high-margin prestige brands, enhancing the customer experience with new partnerships like Uber Eats and expanding own-brand visibility through retail collaborations, is now clearly delivering. THG Nutrition also had an encouraging quarter, delivering revenue growth of 8.5%. Myprotein maintained its position as the world’s number one sports nutrition brand, and our offline expansion strategy continues to bring our innovative products to a wider audience through exciting collaborations and new retail listings.

While whey commodity prices have remained elevated year on year, we continue to diversify our channel and category mix with high-margin categories like our activewear range, delivering excellent growth in 2025 and is set to exceed 15% of Myprotein’s revenue mix in 2026. At group level, this strong underlying performance was achieved alongside taking decisive actions to streamline our operations. The strategic changes in less rewarding beauty markets, alongside the disposal of non-core assets, have now largely been annualized, setting us up for a cleaner comparison and a strong start to the new year, as well as further illustrating the hidden value in the group. Looking ahead, our goal is to build on this strong foundation. We have high confidence in our trading momentum as we begin 2026. In THG Beauty, we will continue to accelerate our digital leadership using AI and virtual tools to enhance personalization.

For THG Nutrition, we will continue to drive our global offline expansion with new range expansions for major U.S. retailers like GNC and Kroger, set to launch in the first half of the year. Across the group, we enter the new year with a clear focus on delivering unparalleled quality, value, and innovation for our customers, all built on a more streamlined and efficient business. We’ve now got some time for a few questions. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing Star One, and please make sure the mute function on your phone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. If you wish to cancel your request, please press Star Two. Again, please press Star One to ask a question. We’ll pause for just a moment to allow you to signal. We’ll now take our first question from Andrew Waite from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Hi there. First one from me on the nutrition side of things. Obviously, very strong performance in the UK, or excluding Asia, I should say. Could you just talk through sort of the shape of how Asia performed within that, and also a bit about price volume if you can as well? Thanks very much. That’s the first one.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Yeah, sure. Look, so I think just to give you the breakdown of the numbers, it was 12.2% for nutrition when you take Asia out of the question, out of the equation, and so we reported 8.5%. Asia is our second biggest market. What we don’t do is give every single territory and try and break that down, as you know, Andrew. But I think just to give you some clarity around Asia, the proposition and the brand strength throughout Asia is really good and really strong. But for anyone that follows currencies, you’ll be aware that the Japanese yen, in particular, has suffered what, another 5% just in the last couple of months’ devaluation. So it’s really struggling as a currency.

We’ve got loads of actions and initiatives that we’re working on throughout Asia, and especially within Japan, where we are switching to a licensing model in some areas as well, which will actually have a bit of an impact in those numbers at the same time because more revenue has gone through the licensing aspect of that model than it would have been the previous year as we steadily progressed to try and sort of de-risk ourselves from that position. So it’s a slightly more complex number than just a straight-line revenue figure on there. But to give some clarity and confidence, the brand strength across Asia is in a really good position.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Thanks. And then I guess probably is on the nutrition side of things as well. I mean, across the group, your top-line number came in a bit ahead of the top end of the guidance. But we’re sort of looking at the overall EBITDA being sort of consistent with where we were before. Is that to do with sort of continued elevated whey prices? And how should we be thinking about that into FY26? Is it going to be a sort of slightly higher revenue environment, but with margin rebuild being a little bit slower than previously thought? Thanks.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Sure. Look, a couple of factors to take into account here. Naturally, whey pricing, when it’s going up, and it’s been going up. It’s been incredible, the demand for whey products across the globe. That has an impact on your numbers. And so there’s an element that feeds into that. Yes, you’re right. The other thing to take into account, though, is we have seen an opportunity in marketing. And so actually, we’ve invested more heavily into marketing. I think there’s probably about GBP 3 million of additional investment gone into marketing during Q4, probably, I think, just that quarter. And I think that splits about GBP 2 million into beauty and GBP 1 million into nutrition if you do the rough math on it.

That’s because with the changes that we’ve made to the business model over the last couple of years, as we’ve gone into a real focus of high-profit territories for us and pulled away from the lower-profit territories, then there’s been a real opportunity to spend more in marketing. So the customer dynamics and the data is really strong. And what we want to do is to underpin the next year, but the years ahead. So it’s not a simple answer that I can say to you is a higher revenue and the EBITDA position going to stay static, something for the future now. It’s a live situation. What I can say is, though, is if whey pricing does fall considerably, then obviously that will have a dramatic impact on a return to profitability or an increase to profitability.

And so I think I did a LinkedIn post, and I didn’t even mention it on a call to put things into perspective for people. I think the math we did around Q3 was GBP 65 million of annual profitability has been temporarily taken from us since the IPO date just because of whey pricing. It will come back down because that’s what happens with commodities over time. But the market has seen explosive growth, which is a good factor as we see it. On the one hand, we are seeing demand for protein across the globe reaching new highs. Supply is struggling to catch up, but it will catch up. But that does mean we’ve got a far, far bigger market in which to play into now as well.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, it sounds like you’re well set up for next year with that additional marketing investment as well. So my last one was on the HMRC VAT side of things. Any update on progress there?

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Yeah, sure. So in terms of, for those as a recap, the HMRC lost the case. They made an application to appeal for the case and were denied, and so they’ve now, albeit somewhat late, made another appeal to a higher court for the opportunity to appeal. So there’s a lot of appealing of appeals going on, but we’ll find out in due course whether that’s in a few weeks or a few months. We’ll find out whether they’ve been denied on that. For now, what we’ve chosen to do is to not change our position on the VAT. So we’re still paying over the VAT to HMRC, even though some of our competitors aren’t doing so, and so that makes an unfair sort of market position. But it’s a prudent way to take this, and we get that money back in the future anyways.

Once that HMRC, if they were to lose the right of appeal, that comes back to us. That’s quite a material number. To put it into perspective for you, today, I think when we first notified the market on this last year was about GBP 30 million that we were due. That number’s now at GBP 55 million. It’s a sizable chunk. We just prefer to take this position, keep increasing the value that’s due to us. That way, we’ve got the strongest position should the outcome become clear in the weeks ahead.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay, great. Thanks very much for that. Well done.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Cheers.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Thanks, James. If that VAT comes back to you from HMRC, would you be in any case required to refund some of that to the end consumer because they’re probably the ones who eventually paid that money as part of the pricing they paid for the product? Thank you.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Sure. So short answer is online is in good growth. So it’s certainly not in decline. That’s in good growth. In terms of the answer for the VAT monies, no, that money’s for THG PLC and nothing related to consumers. How we are accounting for this is the consumers, we’re suppressing our margins by doing this. And so, yeah, that money comes back to us. So as and when we get success on that, then that’ll be a value payable to THG PLC.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. We’ll now take our next question from Lara Simpson from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Lara Simpson, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi, thanks. Thanks, Morgan Moore. I just wanted to touch on free cash flow, actually. I mean, you obviously saw much stronger momentum in the second half of the year both on beauty and nutrition. So interested if you could just talk about how that translates into free cash flow generation in Q4 2025. And then maybe just run through some of the sort of operational working capital factors that influence conversion through the year. And then maybe just first thoughts on 2026, how you’re thinking about sort of CapEx and cost discipline to drive cash generation in the year ahead. Thank you.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Sure. Look, I’ll let Matt or Steve go into the detail for you around the sort of levers for free cash flow for next year. But just to give you, you’ve always got to look at our free cash flow over a period of, let’s say, 12 months rather than just even Q4. Q4 is obviously a great period for us, and we generate a good deal of cash there. But at the same time, when you see opportunities and you invest in your marketing, what we will do as well is from time to time, we’ll take different positions around working cap. So we may take on more stock if brands have got opportunities that they want to put to us, or we feel that there’s an opportunity to come out of the traps fast in Q1.

So there are from month on month, quarter on quarter, some variances. But obviously, Q4 is a really strong cash generation period for us. But Matt, I don’t know if you want to.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Yeah, I think you’ve covered the first and the points, Matt. So you would always have to look at it over a full year. Q4 generates strong cash inflow, but that’s more a bit of seasonality within the year and offsets Q1, Laura. As Matt touched on, the really strong momentum we saw in sales, particularly in beauty, meant that we took a little bit more stock cover just to ensure that we could make sure that we took full advantage of that sales momentum. That means that working capital’s slightly heavier in the year than we anticipated, but that’s purely phasing. And as you go into FY26 with the EBITDA where consensus currently sits around the 100 mark, you’d expect to be generating in the region of 20-25 million of free cash flow next year.

Lara Simpson, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you. And then just to follow up on the beauty side, you’ve obviously done a lot of work on sort of portfolio optimization this year. I know we’ve had the luxury sale and sort of withdrawals from some of your areas in Europe and Asia. Are we now going to be sort of back to business as usual, or should we expect a little bit more portfolio optimization on the beauty over the next sort of 12 to 18 months?

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Look, I think portfolio optimization is done. So the pullback in some of the areas of Asia and Europe, you’ve seen that annualized now. So that side of the portfolio optimization is done.

Lara Simpson, Analyst, JPMorgan: Perfect. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Thank you, and we’ll now take our final question today from John Stevenson from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.

John Stevenson, Analyst, Peel Hunt: Thanks. Morning, everyone. Need to improve my speed on the buzzer, obviously. But I’ll stick to beauty, actually. I’ve got three questions. Can you put the numbers behind the performance improvements in the sort of beauty brand portfolio? And I’ll be entering sort of 2026 in growth. Second question, I don’t know if you can talk about the learnings from the Lookfantastic store. I think it’s been open about a year now. Yeah, how’s that panned out? Have we got plans for more? And I don’t know if there’s any more we can do on the KPIs for Lookfantastic. You mentioned, obviously, great retention, but can we talk a little bit about what’s happening on active baskets and the sort of general spend levels? Because clearly, a really, really strong performance that’s carrying to the year ahead.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Sure. Look, I think in terms of, look, I’m going to go off the top of my head here, John, because I’ve not got it in front of me, the granular details. So forgive me for this. But when you look at the on-brand beauty side of things, to give you an idea of the scale of impacting half one even of just a Perricone brand, right? Fantastic brand, Perricone, the first doctor brand that was out there. It really is a high-quality brand. But it had some timing issues around some of its order flows into retail and various other points that were causing it some challenges. And that swung that business from being a tiny profit business to, I think it probably lost somewhere in the order of about GBP 4 million in half one of negative EBITDA.

So you’ve got a swing there of, I don’t know, GBP 5 million-GBP 6 million of EBITDA in one half on that. A lot of those issues have obviously been addressed now. Second half, I don’t think it was quite a complete reversal, but it had seen massive improvement. And as we come into half one for this year, you’ll see that that swings back. So that’s a nice profit lever for us for half one because we’ve dealt with some of the challenges that that brand brought to us. But it’s obviously a sizable revenue business with sizable margins that are attached to it. So it does get impacted. And look, I’m sure if you wanted to speak to Matt, Damian, or the team afterwards, they’ll give you the granular detail on that. That’s me talking off the top of my head, but it won’t be a million miles away.

Andrew Waite, Analyst, Jefferies: Yeah. It’s not done. And the growth in ex-brands is about 150 basis points better because of that playthrough. So exactly as you said, Matt.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Yeah, and then I missed your other question, John, because I was scrambling in my head to think about Perricone.

John Stevenson, Analyst, Peel Hunt: Oh, yeah. Second question was the store. How the store’s done, the impact it’s had in terms of Halo, and then any plans for more stores?

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Look, the store is bloody epic. I’ve got to say. I hate stores as a general rule, right? Because it’s completely outside of my personal wheelhouse. So it’s not something I can quite comprehend that well. But it’s traded incredibly well, this store that we have in Altrincham in Manchester. So we are going to roll more out. We’ve got one coming in Bristol. It’s just been various delays on various things, issues with fit-out or whatever. But that’s coming as well. So look, if I could press a button today and have a portfolio of a dozen stores across the UK, that would be a lovely place to be in. It just takes quite a bit of work to get done to make them roll out. And at the same time, you want the industry to help fund these.

You can open a store anywhere tomorrow and throw CapEx at it, but it will be your CapEx. Whereas if you’re working partnership with brands, they’ll share the CapEx on it. And so we’re not rushing into this head over heels, but we’re doing a steady approach. We’ll probably open maybe the Bristol one plus another one this year. And then we’ll just steadily work our way through it and do it with the brands. But so far, so good. I mean, look, the beauty sector and industry is having a real purple patch right now. And I do think that market is outpunching pretty much any other market. So look, I think you’d have to be careful that you don’t run in and open 40 stores and then find that the market changed in five years’ time or something. But it’s been really positive so far.

John Stevenson, Analyst, Peel Hunt: Yeah, and that positivity reads through into the sort of overall online piece as well.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Yes, it did.

John Stevenson, Analyst, Peel Hunt: So you get a halo around the store. Yeah.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: It does. Yeah. You get a really good halo effect. We can see the data. There’s the benefits. If you looked at the likes of Boots, you can imagine the huge benefit they get on their beauty portfolio from their store portfolio across the world. And there’s no doubt by having that, it’s a marketing tool at the same time. So our approach when we were traveling this first store was, well, look, let’s assume it loses a little bit of money and we’ll just get the halo effect off the back of it. Actually, it’s been miles better than that. And so you sit there going, well, and we can see and track the halo effect at the same time. So it has been a real positive.

John Stevenson, Analyst, Peel Hunt: That’s fantastic. Brilliant. And then just finally, I don’t know if there’s anything else behind the KPIs that look fantastic, just in terms of sort of active basket spend levels, obviously some big drivers this year.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Yeah. Look, I think it’s a big business. The beauty retail division’s GBP 1 billion of revenue. So there’s a lot of different factors that make up its performance. What I can say is, we’ve completely had a really, really strong time on things like LED devices. We can obviously lean into these things when the market and the trends come that way. There’s been some good brand performances. At the same time, the app has been a great success for us as well, keeping people on there. The loyalty schemes have played a key part at the same time, and we launched those about two years ago. So there’s a whole host of things that you need to be right on. But at the same time, I think the market is really positive as well, right? I think TikTok’s had a real impact on the market.

The youthful side of it, the customer demographic has changed where the market has shifted from 20 years ago being from 40s to 60 years of age to now being probably 14 years of age to 70 years of age. So the market’s growing in lots of different ways, and we’re just trying to make sure we play our part on that through all these different initiatives.

John Stevenson, Analyst, Peel Hunt: Okay. Brilliant. Thanks for that.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Cheers, John.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. With this, I’d like to hand the call back over to Matthew for closing remarks. Over to you, sir.

Matthew Moulding, CEO/Founder, THG PLC: Okay. Well, listen, thanks, everybody. And thanks for jumping on the call at short notice as well. And more importantly, thanks for the support from everybody, from THG staff to all the stakeholders and investors. And look forward to speaking to you in a few months’ time. Cheers.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.