Member Info for Hosai

They don't always have to report offers. Pearson didn't let their shareholders know of an offer that had happened 5 months prior, they also didn't notify of a second offer and only noticed their shareholders once Apollo publicly stated they were going to make a third offer so Pearson had to publicly respond.

"While companies have disclosure obligations to their shareholders, they are not required to disclose takeover approaches if they regard them as very preliminary, conditional or frivolous."

Obviously he did use specific wording but I think "vague approaches" plays it down a little too much.

I think it was a little more than "vague approaches". MM on results day didn't state "we have rejected numerous vague approaches".

I've got no problem with trading, I do it myself and usually do better with that than long term investing. But you just said yourself, "all days traders take losses" i.e make a loss that someone who was invested and not trading wouldn't have made. It doesn't make sense to assume all the day traders are making money overall here anymore than other stocks.

Steve it was just you seemed to be making out that all the day traders are making money short term each day/week, but that is only the case if the trade goes their way, many of them are also losing money each day/week.
The only people who for certain have done well in the last 6 months are shorts (as well as the few long term investors who went long when it was in the 70s/80s).

What do you mean "long term is currently being rinsed". The whole point is they are not trading so aren't winning or losing...their situation all depends on when they bought and their average etc.

Most economists still believe it is transitory, just longer than they thought. Most believe it will be dropping next year and be around 4% this time next year, which is basically in line with what THG were predicting with an eventual return to their 9-10% margin.

Well THG outlined what their situation was a week ago.

Boohoo and ASOS up today however Boohoo still down 7.39% in last month and ASOS down 13.19% in last month whereas THG is up 19.07% in last month.

Boards do not always update about offers, as happened with Pearson recently. They had a bid in november they didn't tell their share-holders about till March. This was times article about it on march 12th:

Pearson has been forced to disclose that it secretly rejected two tentative cash takeover bids of £6.1 billion and then £6.5 billion from an American private equity house.

Shares in the FTSE 100 education publisher rose by 117p, or 18 per cent, to 766½p yesterday as Apollo Global, the prospective bidder, flushed out a statement from its target after disclosing that it was still interested in making an offer.

Pearson described the approaches, at 800p in November and then at 854.2p on Monday, as “unsolicited, preliminary and highly conditional”. They “significantly undervalued the company and its future prospects”, it said."

Pearson said: “The board is confident that the lifelong learning strategy set out in March 2021 will create sustainable, long-term value for Pearson stakeholders and that the results for full-year 2021 demonstrated the building momentum as Pearson executes on this new strategic vision.”

However, it added: “The board is also mindful of its fiduciary duties in the event that an appropriate proposal is forthcoming.”

While companies have disclosure obligations to their shareholders, they are not required to disclose takeover approaches if they regard them as very preliminary, conditional or frivolous.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apollo-considers-takeover-offer-for-pearson-750hpqm9h

I don't think there is any way he would have lied about the rejecting takeover approaches and with the media as negative as they are on THG would have been all over this if they suspected that.

I sort of agree Ste, if I'm remembering right in the q&a I believe he said he "couldn't say the prices" which seems strange.

Haha, I topped up "on the dip" from 230p at 221p. If I had waited a few more weeks would have helped my average a lot.

What do you mean "those have been quashed"?

Bad day though in the end boohoo actually had the same fall. Hope for more PE news/info on rejected bids to get this up short term (even Oliver Shah who hates THG said on Sunday "watch this space" in terms of takeover. If it doesn't happen though can just hold for the long term once the macro situation improves, either way upwards looks more likely than downwards imo.

"Matt Moulding tried to get a meeting with Kim Jong-Un".

That sounds good bulldog, but why am I paying my average is £2.18. I feel those with cushy £1.25 averages should pay the most, I will pay for some of the drinks haha.

As someone else commented, it does seem like a back-handed compliment. THG have already put a large investment into ingenuity and are way ahead yet market values it at £0. WPP must realize the ywill have to spend potentially billions to have something "similar to what THG are doing" as they put it but still think the rewards would be worth it.
What does that say for how THG/Ingenuity should be valued at considering the investment already made and the return Wpp apparently foresee.

Sp I think Commonsense' point is Matt M and friends would potentially be buyers rather than sellers to go take it private. However that would make it strange in terms of them having rejected "approaches" recently, unless those approaching didn't want to work with MM to buy it out?...Also not sure why he would inform us of these informal approaches as that is more likely to make sp go up which theoretically MM wouldn't want if he was looking to buy it out himself with the help of PE soon.

Oliver Shahs comment is interesting to me - "The buzz covered up bad news on margins, but some onlookers are convinced founder Matt Moulding is also trying to flush out a genuine takeover. Watch this space." Makes me also wonder what was in that betaville article.

Title - WPP takes on THG’s Ingenuity with plan to run brands’ online stores

"WPP is set to pile fresh pressure on embattled THG founder Matt Moulding with a move into online retail that poses a direct challenge to the health and beauty tycoon’s tech division.

The FTSE 100 advertising and marketing behemoth will unveil a new service this week called Everymile that will build retail websites for brands, market and promote their products, and carry out the logistics and delivery for them. The new division will be overseen by John Rogers, WPP’s chief financial officer and the former chief executive of Argos.

It is a similar service to that offered by THG through Ingenuity, its new tech division, which is under scrutiny from analysts.

THG’s value has collapsed from £8 billion to £1.25 billion since September. Its current value is the same as SoftBank’s option to buy a near-20 per cent stake in Ingenuity after a deal struck last May. Given the share price slump, there is little hope the Japanese investment giant will exercise that option.

THG derives most of its money from its health and beauty websites, such as Myprotein and LookFantastic, but has said its biggest growth prospects lie with Ingenuity.

WPP’s chief executive Mark Read has pledged to push into e-commerce since taking over from founder Sir Martin Sorrell in 2018. WPP already has online retail businesses that have built websites for Sainsbury’s and Selfridges.

It hopes its tie-ups with brands such as Coca-Cola will give it an advantage over THG, which was formerly known as The Hut Group. WPP will partner with logistics companies to provide the warehouses and delivery of products. It is going to focus on consumer goods, luxury brands, and small businesses.

“When we laid out the new vision for WPP, we said it was communications, experience, commerce, and technology – those were the four areas,” said Read.

“We have a big commerce business but increasingly we saw the opportunity to extend beyond just building websites to an end-to-end solution that is not dissimilar to what THG does.”

Everymile will be run by Mark Steel, who was previously digital director at Argos, where he worked with Rogers.

Last week, Moulding claimed the company had spurned several “unacceptable” takeover approaches for THG in recent weeks following a torrid period for the company.

Last year, he claimed he wished he had never floated THG in London."