THE boss of AO World has said that despite a rollercoaster ride since going public almost a decade ago he would “do it all again, every day and twice on Sundays”.
The London Stock Exchange is suffering from the lowest level of listings in decades amid criticism that pension funds aren’t prepared to back new flotations and a wave of companies choosing New York instead.
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Bolton-born entrepreneur John Roberts told The Sun: “If I had my time again, I would absolutely list. And I’d do it in London, because it’s a lot closer to Bolton.”
The online electricals retailer originally floated for £1billion in 2014 and spent several years trading below its listing price until its valuation soared to almost £2billion on the back of the pandemic boom.
It is now valued at just £467million.
He said: “You get the share price you deserve in the end. Markets overreact both to good and bad news. But I would say that a lot of e-commerce companies are not worth 90 per cent less than they were, these are not fundamentally broken businesses.”
Since making £86million from the listing, Mr Roberts has not sold a share and donates his salary to charity.
Online peers Asos, Boohoo, THG and Ocado have lost between 90 per cent and 45 per cent of share value in the past two years as investors have turned against so-called “pandemic winners”.
AO World yesterday toasted a return to profit after a year of tough cost-cutting.
Sales fell 17 per cent to £1.13billion for the year to the end of March but it was back in the black with £8million of profits, against £11million of losses in the previous year.
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Mr Roberts said AO had not only shut down its international arm but also pulled out of its concessions in Tesco and ended its agreement to provide white goods to housebuilders’ new homes.
The move led to redundancies in those businesses.
“You can’t just cut your way to success but we have to make sure our cost base is right,” he said.
Water bill rise
WATER companies will hike customer bills to pay for overdue infrastructure investment, the boss of the industry regulator warned yesterday.
Ofwat’s David Black said firms would have to ask for rises to fix a decade of issues, adding: “We are very concerned about the impact on bills.”
But on the chances of Thames Water being transferred to taxpayers in a special administration, he said: “We are still a long way off that.”
He admitted Thames’s existing investors had been “reluctant” to put more money in.
Zoom AGM’s bad idea
MARKS & SPENCER’s annual shareholder meetings used to draw such a crowd that it would have to hire the Queen Elizabeth II Conference centre and Wembley to cater to investors, who made taking the boss to task about trouser leg lengths a jolly day out.
But this week a Covid hangover emerged.
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While everyone else has had enough of Zoom, M&S’s chairman Archie Norman thought it best to hold the gathering digitally, with evidence that more people could log in than travel to the site.
Except this meant investors couldn’t visit and the media couldn’t attend.
Shareholders couldn’t interact with the board members.
Instead all questions coming in could be vetted before being asked.
It would be very worrying if companies with more to hide copy M&S’s example.
AGMs are where the unexpected happens and management’s mettle is tested.
Mr Norman already appears to be having a rethink.
He said: “We absolutely think journalists should be allowed in. AGMs should be shareholder events but by definition should be public and open to scrutiny.”
Scrutiny works best out in the open, not behind screens.
Odey cop move
THE financial watchdog has confirmed it has been in contact with the police about some of the sexual harassment allegations against fund manager Crispin Odey.
Mr Odey has been pushed out of his hedge fund after claims of harassment and assault by 13 women over two decades.
The Financial Conduct Authority confirmed that it had already been investigating whether Crispin Odey is a “fit and proper” person to work in the financial industry.
The regulator confirmed he threatened it with legal action.
Finetastic Mr Foxes
FORMER Premier League winners Leicester City have been fined £880,000 by the competition watchdog for fixing the price of their replica shirts with JD Sports.
The Competition and Markets Authority said JD had agreed to stop selling shirts online or for cheaper than recently relegated Leicester’s own website from 2018 to 2021.
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It said this meant fans of the Foxes had possibly paid more than they should have.
JD Sports said it had informed the CMA about its conduct and so was granted full immunity.
Mr Bean bank rap
TWO former Bank of England officials have joined the chorus of criticism that the Bank was too slow to react to signs of creeping inflation after the pandemic.
Ex-deputy governor Charlie Bean and Sushil Wadhwani, a fellow former rate-setter, said that the Bank was wrong to have kept buying government bonds in 2021 when there were signs that the economy was rebounding.
They highlighted this could have contributed to inflation.
2nd fuel grilling for Asda
THE publicity-shy billionaire owner of Asda has been summoned to appear before MPs amid concerns the chain gave inaccurate evidence about its fuel profit margins.
The business select committee last week grilled the “Big Four” supermarkets on inflation.
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At the time Asda said it had not altered its pricing strategy.
This week the competition watchdog ruled supermarkets were ripping off drivers by £900million after Asda hiked its fuel profit targets.
The watchdog also found that Asda’s profit margins on petrol and diesel had trebled since the firm was bought by the Issa brothers in a debt-funded £6.8billion takeover.
Committee chairman Darren Jones wrote to Mohsin Issa over concerns about “apparent discrepancies”.
Mr Issa said: “We remain resolute that our strategy is to offer the best value for customers at the pumps.”
Poundtown
A BUDGET retail chain set up by the founders of Poundworld has plans to open 50 more shops by the end of 2023.
One Beyond opens its 100th store this week in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
The firm is tipped to make £125million this year.
