THG boss Matt Moulding: London IPO was a “mistake”

Moulding said he wished that THG had floated in the US, that the listing in London had “just sucked from start to finish” and that as a major shareholder in the business he had “options” about its future.

Interviewed at GQ Heroes 2021 and reported by the Times, he said: “If I could do it all again, I wouldn’t IPO.

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“There are very few companies where an individual sets a company up. I’ve done it the right way. I’ve done nothing wrong.

“I’ve created 14,000 jobs, given a billion pounds to staff, who’ve sold most of their shares, done loads of things – everything in Britain, tried to support Britain – and, you know, it’s just sucked from start to finish.”

He believed that it would have been better to have floated THG in the US and said: “That’s obvious. I didn’t do it because I wanted to do everything in Britain. We create thousands and thousands of jobs.”

”I didn’t want to do the US route. Now, there’s a reason I should have gone, and actually I’d have had no profile as well, which would have suited me. No one would have written on me if I’d have been listed in the US. But it just is what it is. Next year it will be a different lesson.”

He also said in the interview that he had ”options” as a ”big shareholder” along with ”a few people that I’m close with”.

The 49 year old billionaire has had a rough couple of months as shares in THG, formerly known as The Hut Group, have been in freefall, with the business now being worth worth less than half its value when it floated in September 2020.