Charles Jillings, CEO of Utilico, energized by strong economic momentum across Latin America. Watch the video here.
These are exactly what these boards are for..share some articles if you find them, let people know any new news / posts etc..and have a moan and a very occasional (with this share) moment of euphoria..I miss the euphoria days..
Matmax..being invested in a share to see it plummet and average down for near 3 years isn’t wanting ‘fast money’…LTH investors are frustrated..FACT..and if you’ve been invested more than 2 years and you’re not frustrated you’re clearly Matt ‘don’t give a plop about PI’s’ moulding himself..
Matt has not created SP value for shareholders for 3 years, in actual fact he was down the opposite and has..time after time caused the SP to tank..FACT…so investors are right to ask for answers or a replacement CEO who has not upset the city as much as Matt has. I agree with what he is saying however this is directly impacting the SP..FACT..people will say ‘stop moaning’..’sell up’..I say to them…you’ve been here 5 minutes and you will ultimately get frustrated, like we are, if this continue for another 2 years. It’s starting to turn into a crusade of Matt vs the city and no matter how much we would like Matt to win..we all truly know who the winner will be..someone in the camp needs to take the saggy muscle man aside and tell him some serious home truths for all our benefits.
People are frustrated and I have a lot of sympathy for people who are frustrated..it would be nice if our CEO did also…and start to deliver some SP value..not just bang on about offers for the business just before issuing disappointing results…
Nothing groundbreaking..
Each September sees a big influx of THG’s future leaders.
This September, c150 people joined our graduate and apprenticeship program, fresh from university, college, or school.
This is a serious initiative to both me and THG – it’s at the core of our culture. The success of the scheme can be seen everywhere at THG.
The first graduate on the scheme, back in 2011, was Adam Knappy – an overly confident graduate from Durham University, with a degree in Physics. When Adam walked through THG's small overcrowded office on his first day, he brought a step up in brain power.
I will always remember sitting down with Adam in his first week at THG. He’d asked for a 1-2-1 with me to voice concerns about my recent hiring of a Group Commercial Director. He went on to tell me he felt this senior hire somehow could limit his future career path at THG 😲
At the time we maybe had about c400 staff - 200 in the office and 200 in the warehouse - and annual Revenues c£150m. And so it was a ballsy statement for a young lad straight out of University.
On any other day I would have mentally vomited and written Adam off as a loon. Any further 1-2-1 requests would be swerved and passed onto someone else – probably John Gallemore 😂 But we’d invested a lot of energy into hiring Adam. It needed to work if we were serious about making graduates the bedrock of talent at THG.
I began to see Adam as a personal challenge. We threw him at some problems – starting with an underperforming website. Despite no experience and little guidance he delivered immediate results.
This was all the proof we needed and quickly set about scaling the graduate program. We made countless mistakes each year. One year we ran out of desk space, with some grads working from cars outside the office.
In the meantime, I grew to admire Adam's inner confidence. It helped that he was irritatingly right far too often. The Commercial Director he objected to left THG within 12 months - shortly afterwards Adam became part of the senior team, sharing a cramped office with me and the others.
But it's not been all smiles. When he led the launch of THG's Nutrition offering in the US 8 years ago, things didn’t go entirely to plan. But Adam owned his lessons, as did I. It helps that the US has gone on to become a core market for THG - we can laugh about it now.
The scars from his US lessons have made Adam even more valuable to THG. He’s gone on to hold most of the senior roles there within the Group, and is currently Group CMO. Unfortunately for him, this means he continues to sit next to me each day 😬
And so, for the 150 graduates/apprentices joining THG this month, and the thousands before, Adam is a big reason why you're here. Not too shabby given I wanted fire him in his first week!
Https://www.ft.com/content/d6176bee-716e-4ce1-a286-0e592dc29143
Still amazes me how he managed to cream these properties off THG books before he floated..
Pop in the morning..hits red l, looks like it might recover only to end red again..rinse..repeat. Let’s get a LinkedIn post today providing some positivity..we might get a rant about the uk government changing net zero targets..
Business evolve and so do CEO’s..Matt hasn’t and that’s the problem…I’ll give 30 mill of shares away, I’ll call out the LSE, I’ll do some creative accounting on the property sales, I’ll give interviews that will drop the share price double digits…the list is endless..no SP value created to date..but heyho well wait to the next set of results for more excuses…I look great..is this actually MM
The fact is this was a growth business..revenue went from forecast mid single digit growth to zero to -5…Matt has been very vocal about the city etc..if you are going to be so vocal..deliver what you say the the business is..growth. Failed..fact and the city has told him. Too many adjustments in the update and no one likes smoke and mirrors..absolutely no SP value created for shareholder to date..he knows of offers but doesn’t tell us..it’s disgraceful frankly..what would be the reason for not telling us, he believes the business is worth more..fine I get that but at least tell us what the offer is so we know what others think the value is so we can make an informed decision. These whole property sales and getting the cash in has been a sham by the looks of things, more put in his own name before IPO..he rally cares about the business and not his own interests..It really is becoming as ‘tomorrow business’ always the next set of results…5 years for ingenuity on top of what we have had to date is a complete ship show..
Time to put today behind us…I’ll pray to whoever for a 7am RNS telling us of an offer..famous last words but tomorrow won’t be as bad on the SP…if it is I really will drive upto hale and bring some dog ship with me..splat the Porsche.
Everyone is well within their rights to have a rant..it’s a shambles..adjusted this, adjusted that..it’s all smoke and mirrors with this guy. We were told this time single digit growth now we at 0 to -5..what the flip is all that about, it’s incompetence. One off cost with disposals..what every happened to the 40million property sales? What about the latest property sales. The sales of the other businesses hasn’t impacted revenue that much..it’s smoke and fupping mirrors with this brick…not declaring the bids is so arrogant, I want an RNS tomorrow saying MM is stepping down..only way we are going to realise any value here..prat
And the thing is..the slide won’t be over, history tells us that. Also we got no declaration of number of shares at the start of the month..this has meant in the past, after results, that we might get an RNS giving shares to staff..rag to a bull..but it has been known. FTSE up big today, no doubt will reverse tomorrow and we’ll get the blunt of it, depressing is an understatement here.
I sort of knew this would happen but part of me thought he couldn’t do it again..he bloody well has. Value won’t be realised here..we ain’t even told of that the value of the bids are..at east if I knew I could make my own decision about how long I stay in for..sick today