London float was a bad move for The Hut Group, says boss

The boss of The Hut Group said he ‘wouldn’t recommend’ listing on the London Stock Exchange, having seen its shares fall more than 80 per cent since it floated in 2020.

THG – as it is now known – announced a ten-year partnership with an online beauty retailer but this week chief executive Matt Moulding said: ‘The way we’ve been treated since joining the LSE has done nothing but add fuel to our insatiable fighting spirit.

‘It’s certainly not an experience I’d recommend to anyone, but it’s been a decent test of our start-up mentality.’

THG chief executive Matt Moulding said he ‘wouldn’t recommend’ listing on the LSE

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The Manchester firm, which owns brands including Cult Beauty, ESPA and Illamasqua, was valued at £5.4billion when it listed in 2020 in the largest float since Royal Mail in 2013. It is now worth just £827million.

Moulding, 51, said he and his top team now have a ‘THG against the world’ mindset.

Although he said he was initially worried the listing would ‘dim’ its drive, he said he ‘couldn’t have been further wrong’ and THG has felt like even more of an underdog since. 

Moulding first rued the listing in 2021, when he said an ‘obvious lesson’ from the debut was ‘don’t IPO in the UK’.

It comes amid fears that the Square Mile is losing its allure, after some big names have ditched London for New York.

Construction giant CRH said it would move its primary stock market listing to Wall Street last month while Cambridge chip designer Arm has chosen New York instead of London to float its shares.

THG axed just under 200 jobs at a base in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. But investors welcomed news that Maximo, owner of the All Beauty and Fragrance Direct websites, has signed a ten-year deal to use services in THG’s Ingenuity tech division.

The shares rose 2.1 per cent, or 1.32p, to 65.02p.