Member Info for Yesimabeliever

Some people like a good shafting, I expect polish cap is one of them

Interesting post @redacted. My only comment though is if MM is taking Ingenuity, why is there a NED Chair & CEO in place? Looks to me like they will be running Ingenuity post demerger?

Agreed OSG. Ingenuity is looking an increasingly interesting asset:

- Enterprise customers (it’s cleaned out the low margin, non scaleable, non profitable clients)

- Sticky, recurring revenue contracts.

- Margins improving all the time, and with the infrastructure fully invested and heavy automation I expect new client wins will drop down nicely to EBITDA/margins

- Automated high volume fulfilment seems to be where they are “winning” new clients, but the opportunity is there to cross sell other services and enhance margins further

- Steady growth in 3rd party clients bringing an improving client mix, and less reliance on 3rd Beauty/Nutrition

Thanks @elite. Appreciate the insight. Good to know the monks platform can still attract the right talent organically. I’ve some dry powder so will continue to accumulate and hold. GLA

He did manage to negotiate THG through multiple funding deals with Balderton/Sofina/KKR as well as an IPO, plus the SoftBank deal. That is a fair track record of negotiating deals.

Good summary OSG. Thankfully MM has proven himself to be a canny negotiator of deals over the years so confident he can get us over the line. Better at that than plc IR comms!

@islandelite, you seem to know your onions in advertising (I lurk on ADVFN but don’t post because it is the unmoderated Wild West). How important, in your view, is M&A to S4 to picking up emerging talent/teams to stay at the cutting edge of innovation etc in a rapidly evolving digital world. It concerns me that M&A is currently off the table for s4 due to the lowly share price etc and that opportunities may be passing s4 by. I say this as a shareholder as opposed to a doommonger, or can monks just do it all organically?

IMO MM and BoD will get a deal away over the next few months. Now is the time, they won’t want it drift past end of Dec early Jan as the refinancing will start looming in 2025 and they would be less in “control”:

I suspect they have tested the market with Beauty and Nutriton assets over the last 18 months (there were rumours of an offer rejected for Beauty). They know where the value sits for them. Ingenuity, as we all know is the harder beast to value, but the demerger “process” should answer that question.

So will it be the demerger, or another deal? Anything is possible IMO, but if parties are interested in any parts of THG, including the whole, now is the time to make a move.

Good luck LTH’s

Said it before. Should go to US Private Equity. Integrate properly away from public market eyes, sort the back office out so they have a scalable platform. Get strategic M&A back on the table. Sort out succession . 3-5 years. Better than treading water as UK plc missing numbers and valued at buttons unable to invest and grow properly

Apologies NMH for suggesting it was 🐠y Not sure HSBC has quite got that right bless them, given no demerger was actually “announced”.

😂 😂 @oxford. As have we all. No pain no gain though

Don’t see how a letter could go out like that, and people be trading THG shares without knowledge of it. I smell something 🐠 y

I’ll chip in here, as someone who likes the share and thinks MM is generally unfairly criticised.

Investor call was pathetic - to not have a carefully worded statement and handful of key bullet points that they were prepared to make on the demerger process was incredibly foolish

Agreed Kua. Zero trust, but very bold for the market to give it a 0% probability, when after 12 months of deliberation the CEO presents it as the likely route forward.

Sorry fat fingers OSG!

Familiar with the OVMK report. That and peel hunt aligns with why most investors are here.

And yet we still trade in the low 50’s, so the market doesn’t believe the demerger will happen! Not even pricing in a 10% chance of it!

Is it us that has it wrong, or does mr market have his head in the sand!

Yes Galilee

@osg, no one wants to be the first to stick their neck out there on multiples for Ingenuity as the bid offer spread seems to be 0 (it’s a basket case) to £4 billion (SoftBank) 😂

I guess that is why we have the “for sale” sign up and running a process to attract interest and get some price discovery.

My money is still QIA, they have the deep pockets for a 5-10 year infra play. Hopefully they’ll be some competitive tension, and like you say Apollo coming back in would be interesting. I still wouldn’t be surprised to see someone try and take the whole group.

It’s a good balanced piece that summarises Ingenuity’s proposition well. Ingenuity isn’t as user friendly as Shopify on the e-commerce front end. Not easy to integrate with other systems. However Ingenuity is winning on automated fulfilment, which is the n1 challenge in d2c.

Https://businesscloud.co.uk/news/whats-really-going-on-at-thg-ingenuity/

A good article summarising the for and against case for Ingenuity by Chris McGuire who has his finger on the pulse in the North West.

One interesting line Re speculation that Autostore could be looking to deepen their relationship with THG…could they be part of the Ingenuity demerger story?

I’d also like to see s4 go to US PE and then exit into the US (trade or list)

Standing still does no one any favours in a fast paced industry like advertising. Current lowly valuation takes M&A out or the equation.

I’d like to see the free float get taken out by PE @ £1.50, key management & SMS roll.

With the right PE sponsor buy and build would be back on the table, and the housekeeping around integration could be done away from the prying eyes of markets. Would also allow succession for SMS to be handled pre exit. It’s the right thing for the business IMO