THG founder Moulding foregoes pledge of shares under personal loan facility

LONDON :Online beauty products retailer and tech group THG has received a notification from founder Matthew Moulding and his wife Jodie that they are foregoing a pledge of some of their shares in the firm as collateral for a loan facility.

As of Oct. 19, no shares legally or beneficially owned by the Mouldings are the subject of any security or share pledge, the company said in a statement.

THG’s complex structure has come under scrutiny and is one of the factors that has led to a 52per cent fall in its share price over the past month.

One of these complications was that Moulding and his wife Jodie had put up their stakes in the business as collateral for a 100 million pound (US$137.87 million) loan at the time of the company’s multi-billion pound stock market listing last year.

The loan was made by Barclays to Moulding’s investment vehicle FIC Shareco, and could have seen Barclays – or any third party the loan was sold to – pick up an 18.8per cent interest in the company in the event of a default and enforcement.

The company said that the Mouldings and FIC Shareco confirmed that there would be no disposal or other dealings of THG shares in connection with securing the release of this pledge.

Earlier this week, the online retailer and tech group backed by SoftBank also said it would give up Moulding’s “golden share” that gave him enhanced voting rights and seek a premium listing that would give it access to the FTSE indices.

(US$1=0.7253 pounds)

(Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan; editing by Jason Neely and Stephen Coates)