Pure Beauty

Revolution Beauty secures £32 million finance boost

By Alessandro Carrara | Published: 3-Apr-2023

The embattled beauty retailer will also publish its audited FY22 accounts by the end of April 2023

Revolution Beauty has secured £32m in additional funding.

An amended facility agreement was reached with its banking partners, which will provide the business with “sufficient liquidity” to continue delivering its recovery strategy.

As of 28 February 2023 the business' cash balance was £11m.

The embattled beauty retailer will also publish its audited FY22 accounts by the end of April 2023.

It plans release of its unaudited interim financial statements for the six-month period to 31 August 2022 at the same time.

Revolution Beauty said it will work towards lifting the suspension of trading in its shares as soon as possible following the release of its 2022 financial update.

The funding boost comes after an accounting investigation into Revolution Beauty uncovered a string of serious accounting and management failures in January 2023. 

The retailer failed to publish final results for the year ended 28 February 2022, which prompted the beauty player’s auditor, BDO, to open an investigation.

The Big Four auditor’s report found that co-founders Adam Minto and Tom Allsworth had made personal loans of around £1m to distributors and a senior employee.

None of these arrangements were disclosed to the company's board at an appropriate time.

BDO’s investigation also found serious issues with Revolution Beauty’s acquisition of pharmaceutical company Medichem.

Revolution Beauty has since been under the leadership of Bob Holt, former Interim Chief Operating, and Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Lake.

"The investigation has brought to light a number of serious issues with the running of this business under the previous senior management team and makes clear there is more to be done,” said Holt at the time.

“Together with Elizabeth Lake, our CFO, and the board, we are committed to addressing past deficiencies so that we can deliver the true potential of this business."

Sara Staniford was also appointed as the business’ new US President in January 2023 amid the accounting fiasco.

Staniford previously headed up Revolution Beauty as Group Retail Director for London.

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