Moonpig shares tumble as card maker swings to £33m loss

Moonpig swung to a loss in the first half of its financial year as the personalised card maker takes longer than expected to turn around its experiences business.

The news sent the FTSE 250 firm’s stock price down 12 per cent in early trading on Tuesday. Its shares remain up 57 per cent so far this year.

Moonpig reported a £33.3m pretax loss for the six months to 31 October, 2024, compared to a £18.9m profit during the same period last year.

It pinned the loss on a £56.7m goodwill impairment tied to its experiences business, which offers gifts in partnership with brands including Slug and Lettuce, Hello Fresh and BrewDog.

The firm said “trading conditions remain challenging with significant macroeconomic headwinds” impacting the unit, meaning it now expected “a longer timeline for aligning experiences revenue growth with its full potential”.

Its said a “transformation plan” for experiences was operationally complete and had realised more than £1m in cost savings, including relocating its head office, outsourcing non-core functions and building a new leadership team.

Moonpig’s basic earnings per share slumped to a negative 11.2p for the half year, compared to 4.1p a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Moonpig’s profit came in nine per cent higher at £27.3m.

The firm raised its medium-term target for its adjusted pretax earnings (EBITDA) margin to between 25 and 27 per cent from 25 and 26 per cent, which it said reflected “continued growth of high-margin revenue streams such as plus subscription fees”.

Moonpig’s revenue was £158m for the six months, up 3.8 per cent year on year.

Moonpig and Greetz, the Dutch brand it bought in 2018, added roughly 200,000 active customers over the half year to reach 11.7m.

“Moonpig’s performance has been underpinned by robust growth in order volumes, powered by our multi-year investments in technology and innovation and the structural market shift to online,” said chief executive Nickyl Raithatha.

He added that the firm’s “roadmap of innovative features” included “leveraging emerging AI technologies to enhance the card-giving experience”.