RUTH SUNDERLAND: A fairytale of New York

Matt Moulding, the muscled Mancunian founder of THG, formerly known as The Hut Group, doesn’t look like a victim.

Far from it, particularly in the photographs of the multi-millionaire online health and beauty boss with his mahogany-tanned torso on display.

His is the archetypal story of social mobility. From an ordinary background, growing up in a house with an outside loo, he created THG through his own hard work and enterprise. Yet in social media blogs, he has turned grievance into a corporate art form.

His resentment is directed in particular against the business establishment and the stock market in the UK, the country where he has built his firm and made his fortune.

It is an understatement to describe THG’s performance on the London stock market since floating in 2020 as disappointing. The shares trade at 65p, having peaked at nearly £8. Moulding’s response is to adopt a siege mentality, a ‘THG against the world mindset’, in his own words.

No Nirvana: The majority of British companies that have floated in the US since 2012 have seen their value fall by an average of 40 per cent

His main, much-repeated gripe is regret at having floated THG on the London Stock Market instead of New York.

‘The way we have been treated since joining the London Stock Exchange has done nothing but add fuel to our insatiable fighting spirit. It’s certainly not an experience I’d recommend,’ as he puts it. This disparagement of the UK is common in the tech world. Only here, apparently, are asset managers gauche enough to annoy founders by inquiring about things like profits or dividends before committing their savers’ cash.

Moulding’s belief appears to be that THG has been stymied by retrograde elements in Britain and would have flourished as it deserved had it only listed in the US.

Hold on a minute. Maybe he should talk to Nick Jones, the founder of Soho House, who floated on Wall Street in 2021. The shares have more than halved since.

Perhaps a chinwag with Sir Richard Branson? His Virgin Orbit satellite business listed on Nasdaq just over a year ago accompanied by great taradiddle including the landing of a 70ft rocket in Times Square.

That did not prevent the share price from tanking after a failed satellite launch in January. The company is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. How about the experience of Stephen Fitzpatrick, the entrepreneur behind energy firm Ovo, whose Vertical Aerospace flying taxi business is down nearly 85 per cent since its US float?

Then there is Dr Ali Parsa, the British-Iranian entrepreneur who listed his Babylon Healthcare business on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021 only to watch it slump from around £3billion to just over £100m.

These businesses are different, from THG and from each other. Obviously individual factors are at play behind their experiences. But it suggests the idea THG would definitely have done better in New York should be taken with a serving of sodium chloride.

The majority of British companies that have floated in the US since 2012 have seen their value fall by an average of 40 per cent.

Moulding’s narrative taps into a deeper undercurrent that depicts the UK as an anti-entrepreneurial, old-fashioned nation.

It’s true, Britain has been poor at developing a vibrant tech sector, partly because we have foolishly allowed some of our best companies to be sold to foreign predators.

But talking down the London market will not help – and New York is no Nirvana.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk