Warpaint London PLC on Wednesday said pretax profit in the first half of 2022 climbed, as it prepares for its ‘strong’ Christmas period.

Warpaint is a supplier of cosmetics and owner of the W7 and Technic brands. Its shares were up 5.1% to 135.00 pence each in London on Wednesday around midday.

In the first six months of 2022, Warpaint’s pretax profit climbed to £3.5 million, from £166,000. This compares to a pretax profit of £3.7 million for the year 2021, slightly higher than what the company reported for merely the first half of 2022.

The company explained that gross profit margin increased to 39% from 35% year-on-year, despite continued supply side price inflation and higher freight costs.

Revenue jumped 37% to £25.2 million, from £18.4 million year-on-year, on the back of ‘record’ sales.

It noted that, in the period, 45 of its W7 products were successfully launched in 80 Boots stores.

The company also said that online sales continued to ‘accelerate’ in both the UK and US, with an increase of 44% in e-commerce sales in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.

Warpaint upped its interim payout to 2.6p per share, up from 2.5p last year.

Looking ahead, Warpaint said that it remains confident that it will be able to maintain margins, as it has been largely able to mitigate supply side inflation with price rises.

Further, it expects sales to be second half weighted, reflecting Christmas seasonal sales. At June 30, Warpaint had an order book of £12.9 million to be delivered during the second half, up from £9.9 million last year.

Earlier this month, Warpaint upped its 2022 expectations. It said it expects group sales for 2022 to be at least £61 million and pretax profit to be in excess of £9 million.

In 2021, Warpaint recorded £50.0 million of revenue and it swung to a pretax profit of £3.7 million.

Chief Executive Sam Bazini said: ‘We have been, and continue to be, successful in both adding new retailers to our list of customers and expanding the number of products and outlets served with our existing major customers. I am confident that this can continue and we are working in partnership with a number of our larger existing retailers, both in the UK and internationally, to grow sales further.

‘We are well capitalised with a healthy balance sheet and have significant opportunities for further growth, both already planned with customers and additional ones in discussion,’ Bazini added.

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