The Times - UK (2021-12-22)

44 2GM Wednesday December 22 2021 | the times

Business

Moulding becoming its executive

chairman, landlord and chief executive,

plus enjoying a golden share and an

£800 million bonus incentive. He has

since offered to surrender his golden

share and executive chairman role, but

investors were also spooked by a lack of

transparency around its Ingenuity

technology division.

This year, shares in THG have fallen

originally as an online CD

and DVD retailer. Since

then it has morphed into

a beauty and nutrition

business with 300 web-

sites and 10,000 staff.

When it was floated in

September last year the

company defied traditional

governance standards, with

Investors buy into talk that

THG is ready to go private

Ashley Armstrong Retail Editor

Renewed deal speculation and relief

that it has dodged a pre-Christmas

profit warning have revived the stock

market fortunes of THG after a

turbulent year.

Shares in the ecommerce-to-tech-

nology logistics business rose for a

fourth consecutive day yesterday after

Bloomberg reported that it was again

talking about quitting the stock market.

Sources had said previously that a

decision would be made in the new year

if the company’s market valuation re-

mained depressed.

The revival came despite a company

spokesman describing reports that

THG was planning to go private as

“pure speculation”.

The suggestion that THG,

formerly called The Hut

Group, could go private

came after Matt Moulding,

49, its billionaire founder,

hinted in an interview with

GQ magazine last month that

he and a few other sharehold-

ers owned more than half the

business and that buying it

back was an option. “I’ll

just... [keep an] open

mind,” he said.

THG was founded

in 2004 by Moulding

and John Gallemore,

from 799½p in early January to as low as

167¼p last week, but since then have

bounced back and yesterday were

ahead by as much as 11 per cent before

closing up 13¼p, 6.5 per cent, at 215½p.

In recent days, retail investor bulletin

boards have been full of rumours that

there will be some corporate action at

THG, while it also has been reported

that the company is reviewing options

to lift its share price, such as a sale of its

beauty and nutrition assets, which

include Cult Beauty and Myprotein —

although a spokesman said that it was

“not considering or exploring a sale of

either its beauty or nutrition business”.

Analysts suggested that part of the

recent share price rise had been driven

by a report by The Sunday Times that

The Analyst, a research firm, was with-

drawing its “short” recommendation.

THG is due to report its fourth-quar-

ter results on January 18, which will in-

clude the Black Friday trading season.

While other ecommerce retailers have

issued profit warnings on the back of

the supply chain challenges, there is a

sense that its silence means it is on track

to meet sales and profit targets.

Posts on LinkedIn by THG staff have

lauded the business’s THG Beauty divi-

sion as a “record-breaking cyber unit”.

One staff member said that its beauty

team “had smashed this years targets

[for Single’s Day] before the day had

even begun”, while another employee

said: “Black Friday 2021 — What an

amazing event celebrating another

record-breaking trading day.” Mould-

ing’s Instagram account has been silent

since his GQ interview.

A

company

whose

production

trailers are

used on film

and television sets

around Europe is set to

float in London early

in the new year (Tom

Howard writes).

Facilities by ADF,

based in Bridgend,

south Wales, plans to

join Aim, London’s

junior stock market,

on January 5.

The company started

life as Andy Dixon

Facilities in 1991 with

an old bus that Andy

Dixon, its founder,

turned into a dining

trailer. It now has a

fleet of more than 500

vehicles, ranging from

portable lavatories to

production trucks to

ultra-smart trailers for

leading actors to rest

in.

These have been

used by some of the

world’s biggest

production companies,

including Netflix,

Disney and Sky, and

have been on the sets

of popular films and

Supplier of stars’

rooms with a loo

floats in London

1

Restaurants and pubs have

cautiously welcomed a

£1 billion bailout for the

hospitality industry, but unions

have warned that it does little to

protect workers at risk of losing

their wages. Rishi Sunak, the

chancellor, has announced one-off

grants of up to £6,000 per

premises to compensate

businesses for the collapse of

Christmas bookings. Page 2

2

The cost to the taxpayer of

running Bulb, the failed

energy supplier, could spiral

by £1 billion or more as gas prices

hit fresh record highs, according to

industry estimates. Britain’s

seventh biggest energy supplier

collapsed last month with

1.6 million household customers

and was placed in government-

backed special administration,

with a £1.7 billion taxpayer loan to

fund its operations. Page 43

3

Nine executives behind a

renewable energy investment

business are set to share up to

£478 million after Schroders struck

a deal to take control of Greencoat

Capital. Page 43

4

Atom, the digital bank, says it

has had a 500 per cent jump

in applications for job

vacancies since it introduced a

four-day week for staff with no

loss of pay. Page 43

5

Renewed deal speculation and

relief that it has dodged a pre-

Christmas profit warning have

revived the stock market fortunes

of THG after a turbulent year.

Shares in the ecommerce-to-

technology logistics business rose

for a fourth consecutive day after

Bloomberg reported that THG

was again talking about quitting

the stock market.

6

National Savings &

Investments, the Treasury-

backed bank, has increased

rates on some savings accounts for

a second time in two months as it

struggles to get enough money

from savers to meet its fundraising

target.

7

NatWest has pleaded guilty to

wire and securities fraud in

the United States and

admitted that staff at NatWest

Markets, the taxpayer-controlled

British lender’s trading business,

had participated in schemes to

manipulate the country’s Treasury

markets over a decade. NatWest

Markets has agreed to pay almost

$35 million in settlement over the

activity.

8

Public sector borrowing was

higher than expected last

month as rising inflation

pushed up the cost of servicing

debt. Page 46

9

Jan du Plessis, the former

chairman of BT, is the

government’s choice to take

over as head of the Financial

Reporting Council, the City

watchdog, which has been without

a leader for two months. Page 46

10

BAE Systems is set to

enter the electric flying

taxi business, with plans

to develop military and security

versions. The London-listed

defence company is to launch a

joint venture with Eve, a vertical

take-off and landing aircraft

maker. Page 47

Need to know

Matt Moulding

has dropped

hints of taking

THG private

Frasers director leaves after three months

Mike Ashley’s Frasers

Group announced last

night that Anouska

Kapur had stepped

down from the board

with immediate effect

after three months

as a non-executive

director.

In a brief statement

to the London Stock

Exchange after the

market had closed, the

retail group, which

includes Sports Direct,

House of Fraser and

Flannels, said that

Kapur, 32, was leaving

“to avoid any actual or

perceived conflicts of

interest with a third

party professional

services firm”.

The company did not

respond to requests

for further

comment and no

specific conflict or

firm was mentioned.

However, Frasers said

that the departure

showed its

“commitment to good

corporate governance”.

David Daly, chairman

of the board, said: “We

would like to thank

Anouska for her

contribution.”

Kapur, a partner at

Child & Child, a law firm

that specialises in

property, joined Frasers

in late September. At

the time Daly said:

“Anouska will bring

independent legal

expertise to the board,

which will be invaluable

in maintaining our

regulatory compliance

and appropriate

standards of corporate

governance”.

What is now Frasers

Group was founded by

Ashley, 57, with a sports

shop in Maidenhead,

Berkshire, in 1982. It is a

global business with 815

Sports Direct, Evans and

Game shops in Britain,

43 House of Fraser

stores, 44 Flannels

shops, 56 Jack Wills

shops and another 565

sites overseas.

This month Frasers

gave its first profit

guidance since Covid-19

emerged, reporting a

dramatic recovery from

last year when it made

£5.8 million. It has

forecast that the figure

will be almost double

its pre-pandemic profit

of £143 million.