Member Info for Rock8

I think the first priority is getting MM onside.
He will be rolled in and and then they argue with us?

Certainly looks that way.

Maybe an uncoming low ball offer in next few days?

Yes both sides now but biased sell side.
Unless they move this is going nowhere but i guess that's the point?

It's unusual to see such a large stacked overhang on sell side so someone is trying to send a message? - especially for over two days!

Not a good look for last couple of days.
Sell side stacked with 10k,25k, 80k and 50k sells at all levels up tp 93p.
Either someone shorting or more likely any rise being prevented.
Same as yesterday.

MM posting on Linkedin telling us he's a 'nice' guy.
Clearly not busy.

6,285.536 traded so far today - on and off book

If I were short it would certainly spook me.
He’s undoubtedly a friend of Matt’s and it’s a huge holding from nowhere.

Matt has shortcomings but is clearly intelligent.
THG needs long term financing to continue and grow.
The City won’t provide than anymore.
An MBO is possible but won’t assure that either.
PE is the best way and he knows it.
His biggest priority will be the long term survival of THG

This is very different to last May.

It was clear that the discussions with Apollo had been ongoing prior to RNS release.
RNS release was only forced out due to newspaper report so a formal could be announced at any time.

Given Matt Moulding well and truly burnt his bridges with staying listed with last week’s outburst my only concern is why haven’t they announced the full bid as clearly MM believes it’s very close?
Let’s see what next week brings?

Suspect any opening bid without competition would be a max of +100% vs THG market price prior to RNS so c.130-140p?
But happy if it’s higher.
There needs to be competition to lift it substantially.
IMHO

Looking for trouble

In the tech boom of 2021, most investors went unicorn hunting. Apollo bagged itself a dinosaur.
The $5 billion deal for Yahoo, the internet search company steamrollered by Google in the 2000s, looked an esoteric investment by Apollo, which seeks out firms it deems misunderstood, or those dealing with complex problems requiring longer-term capital.
But after a string of asset sales and cost cuts, Yahoo is set to be one of the asset manager’s most successful buyouts for years.
Apollo was founded in 1990 by a handful of Wall Street bankers, including Marc Rowan and Leon Black, once the right-hand man of “junk bond king” Michael Milken. Rowan succeeded Black as chief executive after he stepped down in the wake of revelations over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Apollo pursued “loan to own” strategies — buying distressed corporate debt as a beachhead to seize control of businesses. Today, it manages $548 billion (£440 billion) of assets across its private equity, credit and infrastructure divisions. The firm, which this month moved its 400 UK staff into a new London office, is close to finalising a fresh buyout fund of between $20 billion and $25 billion.
Apollo does not tend to overpay, so when rock-bottom interest rates inflated company valuations, it struggled to land deals. Now, with share prices under pressure and difficult refinancings looming, it is aggressively hunting targets.
John Wood Group, the oil and gas engineer, has entered talks after Apollo tabled five bids. Last year, the asset manager bid unsuccessfully for publisher Pearson and went deep into the auction for Boots, which was called off. It has also circled Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.
Given that Apollo can part-finance deals through its own credit business, so minimising the impact of tricky debt markets, there is little to slow it down.

Against that grim backdrop, Moulding has used his social media profile to tell more positive stories of the talented workers fast-tracked through the ranks at THG. He may have alienated plenty of people in the Square Mile but within his own company, where dozens of employees have become millionaires on his watch, he is more popular.
And while big City institutions give THG a wide berth, there are investors who believe the worst may be behind it.
Two London-based activists have recently popped up on THG’s shareholder register. One is Sparta Capital, an outfit founded by Franck Tuil, a former portfolio manager at Elliott Advisors. The other is Kelso, led by City veteran John Goold, which is pressuring Moulding to spin off THG’s nutrition business and to reset relations with the City.
Apollo’s move is not the first time THG has attracted takeover interest. Two approaches emerged from unexpected sources last May: a half-baked effort from property tycoon Nick Candy, and a more concrete, 170p-a-share bid from hedge fund King Street and Belerion Capital, the investment vehicle of Iain McDonald, a Moulding ally and THG board member.
THG rejected that bid on the basis that the debt financing behind it would have left the business in a weakened position — leaving McDonald free to return to THG’s board and continue his 13-year stint as a non-executive director.
The question now is whether THG’s board and shareholders will hold that bid up as a yardstick for Apollo.
The private equity giant habitually seeks out targets such as THG — unfavoured companies facing complex challenges best solved away from the glare of the markets. Under Takeover Panel rules, it has until May 15 to table a firm offer.
“Despite what you might read, Matt is pragmatic and will do what he thinks is best for THG — whether that’s with Apollo or someone else,” said a source close to Moulding. ”He wants secure financing and an opportunity to grow the business.
“The equity markets have told him what they think about the business ... and that is why we are in [this] situation.”
In the meantime, Moulding continues to perpetuate THG’s siege mentality. His motivational video last Christmas urged staff to ignore the haters, telling them: “The best revenge is massive success.” All shareholders would surely welcome that.

To funnel more business through its warehouses, THG needs to sign more clients for Ingenuity, the ecommerce platform that can handle everything from building websites to distribution and customer queries.
The purported potential of Ingenuity was what propelled THG’s shares up to £8 in the months after its float in 2020, valuing the business at more than £7 billion and triggering an £830 million share-based bonus for Moulding. Insiders boasted that Ingenuity took the Ocado model and “put it on acid”.
Take-up, though, has been modest. THG has been focused on landing “whales” — big-name clients that would be a ringing endorsement for the platform. The problem is, the company is pitching Ingenuity just as online sales growth peters out and shops enjoy a renaissance. The whales have yet to bite and Ingenuity remains a small part of the overall group — sales rose by 9.1 per cent to £159.6 million last year.
There were early signs that Moulding, 51, would not take well to the glare of the public markets. In the summer of 2020, when The Sunday Times gently grilled THG’s boss over his light-touch approach to corporate governance — citing his dual chief executive-chairman role and the unconventional arrangement under which he rents properties to THG — he urged his interviewer “to be kind”.
More intense scrutiny followed. Short-sellers queried the potential of Ingenuity and why THG struggled to generate cash — it burned through another £225 million last year. Pressure from investors forced Moulding to bring in former ITV boss Lord (Charles) Allen as chairman.
Life as the boss of a listed company has, in Moulding’s own words, “sucked from start to finish”. He recalled how his wife found him making phone calls while lying prone like a starfish on the floor — and then there were his conspiracy theories about bad actors in the City. These can be traced back 18 months, when a raft of sell orders wiped almost £2 billion off THG’s market value in the hours following an investor presentation.
Moulding handed the Financial Conduct Authority information that he believed would prove that hedge funds and stockbrokers were colluding to drive down THG’s share price. The FCA declined to say whether it had opened an investigation.
“I’m not sure anyone has emerged from this with much credit — the investment management world that participated in the equity, the investment banks that brought the company public, Matt and John themselves, or, dare I say it, the media,” said David Reynolds, a technology analyst at the stockbroker Davy. “If [the Apollo bid] is credible, I actually believe it perhaps does offer some resolution to this current situation that doesn’t make anybody happy.”
Over the past 18 months, THG, like other low-margin ecommerce companies, has been battered by rising costs and underwhelming demand. Despite prices rising, sales were up just 2.7 per cent in 2022.
After years of rapid expansion, THG cut 2,000 jobs — almost a quarter of its workforce — last

Tomorrow’s Sunday Times
Matt Moulding eyes an end to THG’s miserable life on the markets
Matt Moulding cut jobs at his beauty and nutrition business THG as the share price fell, but has he done enough to entice bidders to take it off his hands?

Last Christmas, THG boss Matt Moulding put together a video to fire up his charges after a tough year for his online beauty empire. Moulding played an extract from the film The Wolf of Wall Street, in which the unscrupulous stockbroker Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, learns how his colleagues systematically stiff their clients to line their own pockets.
The parallel Moulding wanted to tease out was clear: since its ill-fated stock market float, THG has fallen victim to dark forces in a game that’s rigged.
Now, the muscle-bound entrepreneur may be able to escape the gilded cage he reluctantly inhabits. Last Monday, THG revealed that private equity giant Apollo had made a “highly preliminary” offer to acquire the company behind Cult Beauty and Myprotein, lifting its bombed-out shares by 40 per cent. Apollo knows THG well: the firm, which is said to be working on the potential bid with advisers from investment bank RBC, already owns a chunk of its debt.
But THG’s weak results the next day underlined why a degree of scepticism over any deal is warranted. Write-downs on the value of its beauty brands and of Ingenuity, the outsourcing division once billed as its great white hope, pushed the group to a pre-tax loss of £550 million on sales of £2.24 billion last year. After bouncing around all week, THG’s shares closed on Friday at 90p, valuing the company at £1.17 billion.
Last week was not the first chaotic one in THG’s brief history on the stock market, but could it be one of the last?
“A lot of investors wouldn’t want to sell, but I think it is going to come to that,” said one shareholder. “It is time for this one to leave the market, sadly.”
THG, formerly known as The Hut Group, was founded in 2004 by Moulding and John Gallemore, who remains with the company as chief operating officer. It started out as a VAT-free CD and DVD retailer in the Channel Islands before switching to beauty and nutrition products, which enjoyed stellar growth.
Today, THG makes more than half of its sales from its beauty division, including websites Cult Beauty and Lookfantastic and its own brands such as ESPA, a maker of skincare products. Its nutrition division accounts for about a third of sales through brands including Myprotein, a manufacturer of protein bars and shakes.
From its base near Manchester airport, THG operates a vast automated warehouse and a broadcast studio where former footballer Gary Neville films his show The Overlap. The heavy investments made by THG in its infrastructure have drained it of cash. Now, Moulding must prove they have been worth it.

A totally new declaration

Has 2.86%
New holder?
Apologies is I should know but can’t find him on registry