Hut Group chief Moulding pledges £100m stake to charity

The chief executive of THG, the online beauty retailer, is to hand a £100m stake in the company to a new charitable foundation – establishing him as one of Britain’s biggest individual philanthropists.

Sky News has learnt that Matthew Moulding will announce the pledge alongside THG’s full-year results and first-quarter trading update on Thursday, according to insiders.

The donation will come seven months after THG – parent company of The Hut Group and owner of some of Britain’s biggest online beauty and healthcare brands – made its debut on the London Stock Exchange, turning dozens of its employees into paper millionaires.

The THG chief’s headline-grabbing commitment will see £100m given to the Moulding Foundation, which he established last year.

Its recent registration with the Charities Commission means that little information is available yet about the intended recipients of the money, although Mr Moulding is said to want to see much of it used for projects in the north-west of England, where THG is based.

The establishment of the foundation underlines Mr Moulding’s intention to use a significant proportion of his wealth to fund charitable projects, a friend said on Wednesday.

The technology entrepreneur received a share windfall worth more than £800m late last year after THG hit a number of financial targets set out in its flotation prospectus, while he already held a stake in the company worth about £1bn.

While he has a vast fortune on paper, Mr Moulding has taken far less than the £100m figure out of the company in cash during its 17-year history.

He said last year that he would donate his £750,000 salary and annual bonus to charity each year, while he also hands any income from a separate property holding company to good causes.

“It is essential that those who are able to help out, do so,” Mr Moulding said recently.

His pledge will emerge in a stock exchange announcement on Thursday, when a lock-up preventing the sale of shares by pre-IPO investors expires.

The precise value of the donation to Mr Moulding’s foundation could vary depending on THG’s future share price performance.

By committing to giving away at east £100m, Mr Moulding joins the former retailer – and THG shareholder – Sir Tom Hunter, the hedge fund billionaire Sir Chris Hohn and Gerald Ronson, the petrol forecourts tycoon, among Britain’s biggest business philanthropists.

THG, which owns beauty sites such as Lookfantastic and Glossybox and a thriving logistics operation called Ingenuity, has been a big corporate winner from the coronavirus pandemic.

Although its share price has drifted back from its flotation peak, it closed on Wednesday at just over 700p – more than 40% higher than its offer price in September.

It has upgraded sales forecasts since going public as a result of soaring demand from consumers and the adoption of its fulfilment platform by multinational blue-chip clients.

Mr Moulding founded The Hut Group alongside John Gallemore in 2004, and it has since grown into a digital giant employing more than 7000 people.

Investors’ enthusiasm for the stock has confounded critics of the dual-class share structure which allows Mr Moulding to veto any hostile takeover of the company until late 2023.

The City generally views such arrangements with disdain, with similar governance arrangements cited as one of the factors in the poor reception given to Deliveroo, shares in which began unconditional trading last week.

Wise, the payments app, plans to introduce a similar dual-class structure when it pursues a public share sale later this year.

A recent Treasury-sponsored review led by Lord Hill, the former EU commissioner, recommended that founders of fast-growing companies should be able to retain greater control after listing them through dual-class shares.

A further consultation by the City regulator on the issue, expected shortly, is likely to attract opposition from institutional investors.

A spokesman for THG declined to comment.

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