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Bantham, that paragraph is still in the Telegraph article, it came out at 7pm yest so I believe it is the sunday paper? The Sunday Times have already reported on it a couple of weeks back, perhaps they don't want to report on it every week?
You don't think it's odd that betaville come out on Friday saying Advent have hired consultants from Mckinsey and company whereas THG are working with bankers from "barclays and jefferies to advise on the transaction". The Barclays aspect being new information for THG. It also says both THG and Advent have declined to comment.
Then late Sat the telegraph say "The row has emerged as Mr Moulding prepares for private equity bidders to seize of THG's bombed out share price, bankers from Barclays and Jefferies are advising THG on a potential bid defence."
Why are they not randomly pointing out other companies with low prices who are being advised against bid defenses? I don't think anyone is saying there is an imminent bid happening but I would say there is no smoke without fire.

https://twitter.com/_PapaLazarou/status/1494729903962476553/photo/1

The telegraph article was from yesterday at 7pm Rock.

Nothing in the Sunday Times though it did have a piece by the same writer from 2 weeks ago who dropped the THG rumour, writing about how e commerce players mostly boohoo and asos have suffered from supply chain issues:

"In the past year, the share prices of fast-fashion retailers Asos and Boohoo, online beauty seller THG, and electric appliance specialist AO have more than halved.

Privately, online retail sources admit demand has fallen sharply in recent weeks amid mounting concern over the cost of living. Despite the sharp sell-off, some traders bet that shares have further to fall. Shorting against Asos and Boohoo totals £205 million, according to stock lending data from IHS Markit.

The supply chain crisis has had the biggest impact in the fast-fashion industry. The business model is predicated on free-flowing supply chains that allow retailers to design, manufacture and deliver new garments in a few weeks.

Fast-fashion companies depend on air freight to move goods at speed. Credit Suisse analyst Simon Irwin said Boohoo transports about 40 per cent of inbound orders and about 30 per cent of outbound orders by air. Asos flies about 14 per cent of outbound orders, he added.

Lengthy shipping delays and an eightfold increase in costs catalysed a surge in demand for air freight in the run-up to Christmas, but capacity was about 15 per cent lower than usual thanks to the cut in passenger flights, which carry cargo in the belly of the plane. The price of moving a kilogram of cargo from Hong Kong to Europe rose to $8.50, roughly triple pre-pandemic levels.

Shares in Boohoo have fallen below 91p, their lowest level for 5½ years. The retailer is running sales of up to 70 per cent off, seen by some as a late push to try to hit forecasts before its financial year end in February. That idea was dismissed by a source close to the company, who insisted Boohoo was running a normal end of season sale.

Online retailers deemed strong enough to weather the storm are on the radar of opportunistic private equity firms, such as Advent International, which is said to be scouring the sector for opportunities.

“Demand for fast fashion isn’t going anywhere,” predicts former Asos chairman Brian McBride.

Even accounting for the recent drop-off in sales growth, early evidence suggests that more people will be shopping online than before the pandemic. Excluding food, 41.5 per cent of all retail purchases were made online in January, compared with 31.2 per cent two years ago, according to the British Retail Consortium and KPMG. The issue for the likes of Asos and Boohoo is that new competitors could capture that growth. Take the Chinese operator Shein. In less than a decade it it has built a fast-fashion business turning over an estimated $10 billion-plus annually."

Danl I was just meaning the gist of the article, as you say it does point out "they're not the only ones". The takeover defense seems a bit surprising to me, Matt still has his golden share, so why worry about an imminent defense?

Thanks Herehopin, as you say, from what I can see it does say "THG aren't the only ones" who are discounting too much for their liking.
In terms of the bid rumour, it would appear the betaville writer and the Telegraph aren't quite as convinced as Bantham was that no 7am RNS meant it couldn't be true.

There's an article in the telegraph that looks mostly negative talking about suppliers giving less to THG because they are discounting too much. However there is also a paragraph about Barcalys and Jefferies helping them work on a "bid defense". Anyone have access to the whole? I'm only able to read in snapshots by refreshing and seeing the article for one second before paywall kicks in.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/19/matt-mouldings-thg-faces-ugly-row-beauty-discounting/

Danl maybe if people are using all those bulk discount type deals on the myprotein website it still comes out cheaper? Obviously you raise good points about the others prices, I feel THG would reduce the prices of these individual items more if they were noticing a loss of market share. Not all of the others products are cheaper though however, for example Bulk, unflavoured 1kg = £35 pounds, whereas My protein 1kg unflavoured = £25.40. Perhaps with amazon own brand the brand power is still not strong enough so not viewed as enough of a threat even with the discount.

I think they can pass on the costs to some degree. Gym and fitness is an important core part of many peoples life and I believe most people will keep buying protein even at higher prices in the short term. People are still holding onto a lot more savings than they had before due to the forced saving during lockdown. All protein competitors will be facing the same cost issue as THG.

Not sure why you doubt him so Bantham this is the guys profile -
"I began my career on trade publications, such as Financial News, Air Finance Journal and Mergermarket.com. In 2005, I joined The Daily Telegraph as its first ever M&A correspodent and broke several major stories, such as Qatar's attempt to buy J Sainsbury for £12 billion in 2007. I have also written extensively for The Sunday Telegraph following the merger of editorial teams at the Telegraph Media Group.
In 2013, I left the Telegraph Media Group to work on freelance basis and have since been published in the TheSunday Times, The Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, Private Equity News, Financial News, the Australian Financial Review and Dealreporter.
I set up Betaville in 2014 and have broken several agenda-setting scoops, including the £3.5 billion merger of Carphone Warehouse with Dixons Retail."
Last time he wrote about this story the Sunday Times also wrote about it and got their info from a different source than him.

It's not really a re-hash when it mentions THG working with bankers from Barclays to advise on the potential transaction and Advent appointing consultants from Mckinsey & company, both of these aspects are new information.

I don't think we should be that surprised if Matt was considering trying to do something with private equity, he said the following in the GQ interview when the sp was £2.03, it's now £1.13.

"“I'd be lying if I said the share price doesn't bother me, because it's like having your homework marked every single day. That said, there is an element of me that wants to take the Mike Ashley approach, which is just like: I'm not selling anything. We've got cash in the bank, we generate loads of cash, it's a massive business, things are in great shape. So you can sit there and almost just go, ‘No, I won't play your game.’ But it is a big organisation that's got a lot of staff, they want to see progress, but what I won't do is a load of short-term decisions. There's loads of people pressuring me to do this, do that, and I won’t. So, at the moment, the plan is I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, I'm just going to trade through key peak trading period, smash our numbers like we've always been doing and, you know, I’ll take a view. Equally, it doesn't have to... we do have other options in terms of I'm a big shareholder – more than half of the business is owned by me and a few people that I'm close with. So, you know, the share price only moves because of the balance of shares that might trade around. So I'll just… open mind.”

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/thg-matt-moulding-interview

Actually re-reading it says "formalize their interest in a few weeks" rather than "formalize their offer".

Bantham why would you expect zero reaction from the press, last time the Sunday times verified it with a different source from the one betaville got the story from.

What's interesting is if it's true that they may formalize the offer in a "few weeks" then if softbank are still involved (which surely they 98% have to be? - still have a board member, want ingenuity, RBC said they "didn't expect them to walk away" only last month) then the offer price has to be minimum 596p until mid-May.
I'm not saying I can see this happening but I do wonder what they might be planning...perhaps by splitting things up some way you can get around the takeover rule?

People may already know this but even though the betaville article says it was released at 14:42 that was only to his paying subscribers, it only publicly appeared after market close around 5pm when he also posted it on his twitter.

This has become like gamestop but for shorts...eventually the fun still stop and it will reverse hard.

Yes, surveys suggesting supply chains starting to ease a little...eventually sentiment will change on growth and tech if the current predictions are correct of peaking in the spring than falling in the latter half of the year.

Wow another THG investor who believes THG is worthless and a penny share, are you Fords cousin?

On the one hand bad for THG to have more competitors but clearly many see this market as having a lot of growth - https://www.theindustry.fashion/next-and-boohoo-wisely-investing-in-uk-online-health-beauty-market-says-globaldata/

There's an article by the economics editor in the Times predicting inflation will be transient -

"Fortunately, and this is the good news, you do not have to be a monetarist to believe that while inflation is heading higher over the next few months, it will peak and then fall and in the second half of the year will be on its way down.

Surveys suggest that supply chain difficulties, which generated upward pressure on prices as the world economy bounced back after the pandemic, are starting to ease. That will not happen immediately, but it will over the next few months."

The IR was talking about the sell off recently from around £190. They already previously said they knew of no reason for the sell off before that.