Warpaint London – with poor Finals expected tomorrow, its shares, at 196p, could soon show a strong recovery, brokers average TP 393p

Mark Watson-Mitchell – 28.04.2026

Tomorrow morning, 29th April, Warpaint London (LON:W7L) will be announcing its 2025 results, which will not be good, but recovery is now expected.

This group, which is a specialist supplier of high-quality colour cosmetics and personal care brands at an affordable price, and is the owner of the W7, Technic, Skin & Tan, Super Facialist, Dirty Works, Fish Soho and Barry M brands.

Its brands are sold primarily to major retailers, retail chains and supermarkets, with a growing direct online business.

Recent Acquisition and Trading Update

On Monday, 9^th February this year, the group announced the acquisition of the Barry M brand for £1.4m in cash, financed by its £18m cash reserves as of 31^st January.

The acquisition of Barry M, which had approximately £15m in revenue in the year to end-February 2025, is expected to accelerate penetration into key UK retail channels.

Along with that acquisition news the group issued a Trading Update for the year to end-December 2025, stating that it expects revenue of approximately £105m, up from £102m in 2024, with an improved gross margin, however adjusted EBITDA was projected to have decreased to £22m from £25m, due to factors including the closure of Bodycare, a challenging consumer environment, and US tariff uncertainty.

Management Comment

CEO Sam Bazini stated that:

"Looking ahead to the new year, we expect to see a return to organic growth across the Group and also expect to be able to update the market on further significant new customer roll outs with our full year results in April.

In addition, we are delighted to announce today the acquisition of the Barry M brand, which is expected to accelerate our penetration into key UK retail channels.

Despite the 2025 results being heavily impacted by the very challenging macroeconomic environment seen during the year, we were pleased with the progress made in many areas of the Group.

In particular with the Brand Architekts business, which delivered a profit in year one and we look forward to developing the further opportunities we see for this business.

Across the Group, we remain very well positioned for the future, with a focus on achieving additional improvements in margins and further roll-outs to new retail outlets."

The Equity

There are 80.79m shares in issue, with some 43% in institutional hands.

The larger holders include Samuel Bazini, CEO (19.80%), Eoin Macleod, MD (19.80%), Schroder Investment Management (10.04%), Rathbones Investment Management (5.29%), JP Morgan Asset Management (5.16%), Raymond James Wealth Management (2.18%), FIL Investments International (1.91%), Allianz Global Investors (1.85%), TrinityBridge (1.84%), and Premier Fund Managers (1.65%).

Analyst Views

There are three analysts following the group, the consensus of whom is for an average Target Price for its shares of 393p, the Highest for 510p, the Lowest at 270p.

Two analysts call the shares out as a Buy, the other to Outperform.

At Shore Capital Markets, its analysts Darren Shirley and Clive Black considered that the Trading Update not unsurprisingly reflected a challenging market with a number of trading headwinds.

Their estimates for 2025 are for £105.0m (£101.6m) revenues, while adjusted pre-tax profits could have fallen to £18.4m (£22.6m), with earnings of 17.0p (21.8p) and a dividend of 12.0p (11.0p) per share.

For the year to end-December 2026 they have pencilled in £119.6m sales, £23.6m of profits, 21.7p earnings and a dividend per share of 13.0p.

They stated that:

“We remain of the view that Warpaint and its brands remain immature in a significant UK and global beauty market, and that the attractive ongoing store roll out programme demonstrates the relevance of its W7, Technics and BA stable for retailers across the UK, Europe and further afield.”

My View

I have previously shown confidence in this group, which was knocked to pieces in the last year or so.

Having, hopefully, gone through its worst, I now take a gamble in saying that this group appears to be on an upward trajectory, albeit one of recovery.

Accordingly, I now set a new Target Price for the shares, now 196p, at 240p.

(Profile 17.06.2025 @ 411p set a Target Price of 555p)

(Profile 28.04.26 @ 196p set a Target Price of 240p)