After disastrous City presentation it’s time for senior independent director Zillah Byng-Thorne to earn her fee
Shares in THG, or The Hut Group, finally bounced on Thursday, but, given how far they’re fallen, even a 10% move doesn’t repair the damage. At 306p, the price is still only modestly above its level on Tuesday after the disastrous City presentation where founder Matthew Moulding tried to display the wonders within the Ingenuity subsidiary but drew a collective gasp of: “Is that it?”
In a blistering research note, Numis analyst Simon Bowler ascribed a value of precisely zero, or “option value”, to Ingenuity, the bit that provides “end-to-end technology services” – web-hosting, marketing and logistics – for brands, include THG’s own. “Ingenuity is critical in many ways, but feels increasingly nascent, opaque and lacking sufficient proof points to justify a significant valuation,” he wrote. He values the whole company at 230p, or less than half last year’s float price.
