Matt Moulding’s Instagram account tells you a lot about THG’s CEO and founder.
It’s not the family images or liberal sprinkling of topless photos of gym-loving Moulding that are so telling – but rather the quote he has in his bio.
‘I’ve never been disliked by anyone I’d want to trade places with,’ it reads and sums the entrepreneur up to a tee.
Matt Moulding’s Instagram account
Someone who knows him well offered this description. “Matt is a fighter and is unbelievably driven,” he said. “He’s built a really big business and not a lot people can say that.”
So who is the real Matthew John Moulding?
He was born into a working class family in Colne, Lancashire, in February 1972, and later explained that the limit of his ambition was a regular pay cheque and climbing the management ladder.
“Most of my focus growing up was just trying to land a decent job that would provide a platform for bigger and better things,” he said. “I wasn’t planning to set up a business — it just happened.”
After getting a degree in industrial economics at the University of Nottingham he trained as a chartered accountant, specialising in insolvency.
His first ‘proper job’ was at the Caudwell Group, which included the now-defunct mobile phone retailer Phones4U.
He rose up the ranks to become chief financial officer of the distribution arm of the business and might have stayed there if the company’s founder and chief executive, John Caudwell, hadn’t been considering a sale with private equity investors.
Moulding assessed his options and decided to set up an online retailer offering a range of goods.
He began looking at the idea of an online entertainment after buying a CD online and realising how much cheaper it was than if he’d bought it in a shop.
And so the genesis of what we now know as THG was born.
It’s a dog’s life: Matt Moulding, founder and CEO of THG
In 2004 he and former Caudwell colleague John Gallemore, who still remains in the business today, launched The Hut Group, which later rebranded as THG.
“We decided that whatever we sold needed to be small, so it would go global, we’d need to have very low returns — as a group we have less than 1 per cent returns – and we wanted only one-man delivery,” explained Moulding on the company website.
“We also wanted certain gross profit margins, because if you’re operating at low margins like 20-30 per cent, that’s not ever going to make a great deal of shareholder value. We focused on product categories above 40 per cent.”
It was a winning formula but Moulding had just got started.
In 2010 the company announced the £19.4m acquisition of the lookfantastic Group, which extended its reach into the luxury goods market.
A year later came the game-changing acquisition of Myprotein.com, which provided a root into the lucrative sports nutrition market.
The deal price of £58m may have seemed hefty but will probably go down as the bargain of the century and was crucial to the company’s success.
Speaking at the time Moulding said: “The addition of Myprotein to The Hut’s operating platform is another milestone in our ambitions to become one of Europe’s leading online players.”
Everything Moulding, a devoted father-of-four, touched seemed to turn to gold and perhaps this was the reason why he decided to float the company in 2020 amid much fanfare at a share price of 500p.
After early trading, media headlines trumpeted that it was the biggest stock market debut since Royal Mail in 2013 and had raised £1.88 billion, valuing the Manchester firm at £5.4bn.
At the time it was the largest tech IPO seen in London based on the market capitalisation of a company at listing.
However, the listing exposed the unicorn – and Moulding in particular – to intense scrutiny, which hasn’t always sat comfortably with him.
The Daily Mail reported that the deal had landed the self-made online shopping tycoon with a whopping £830m payout – one of the biggest in UK corporate history.
The problem was as the share price dropped so the criticism intensified and THG received a regular kicking from investors and sections of the media.
Investors didn’t like the fact that he operated as both the CEO and executive chair or the fact that he had a ‘special share’ – referred to as a ‘golden share’ – which potentially allowed him to block a hostile takeover.
Things reached a nadir in 2021 when THG held a capital markets day, which turned into a PR and financial disaster and the company’s share price bombed.
Not even the fact that Moulding gave up his ‘special share’ rights and beefed up the corporate governance could stem the flood of negative stories.
Initially Moulding’s approach was to ‘sit tight, maintain a British stiff upper lip, and accept it’.
However, his 51st birthday in 2023, saw a change of tactic and the gloves finally came off.
“This time last year, it felt like there had barely been a day where either me or THG hadn’t featured in the papers,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
“We were under siege on a daily basis, as were my family and many people at THG. I accept that negativity comes with the territory, but seeing it forced onto loved ones stirs a whole different emotion.
“A particularly low point was seeing my mum being mocked by some in the business media. Her crime? She apparently emailed a journalist to ask if they had anything else of interest to write about. Apparently that’s not the done thing.”
His mother reportedly contacted The Sunday Times journalist Oliver Shah over the paper’s negativity towards her son, adding: “You must lead very dreary lives in your dead-end jobs.”
Moulding added: “Seeing things affect my family like this meant that I had to make a change and speak up.
“And so, for the year ahead, it’s more gym and Spanish lessons every day… and more LinkedIn posts – if only to keep Mama Moulding from taking matters into her own hands.”
Matt and Jodie Moulding, with his parents (copyright Matt Moulding)
And he’s certainly been true to his word with a series of hard-hitting posts and colourful use of language.
One of his most memorable posts came in 2024 when he said a favourable report by UK investment bank Peel Hunt showed THG wasn’t a ‘bag of spanners’ company after all.
A recurring theme of his posts has been his criticism of hedge funds, media and bank analysts for building negative coverage against UK listed companies, including THG.
In April 2023 he wrote: “The purpose of ‘the game’ is simple: bet that a share price will fall, and make sure you win the bet by doing everything possible to discredit the company.
“The more aggressive the claims and actions against a company, the bigger the share price impact. Strange work, I know, but it pays big. And if you repeat it time and again, against a plethora of UK listed companies, then the rewards are mind-boggling.”
The video in the post – which can still be viewed on his Instagram account – draws heavily on Wolf of Wall Street and opens with the line: “You are lower than pond scum.”
In recent times a lot of the criticism of THG has focused on Ingenuity, the digital tech commerce platform of the business.
Having two flourishing divisions in THG Beauty and THG Nutrition might satisfy most people but Moulding isn’t like most people.
One former THG staffer said: “What Matt is good at is financial re-engineering. Matt had the nutrition and beauty businesses but he wanted a third arm of the business. He liked the multiples that go with technology.”
Ingenuity’s impressive client roster has included the likes of Nestlé; Coca-Cola; Mondelēz International (owners of Cadbury); L’Oréal; Kraft Heinz; Homebase; Matalan; Holland & Barratt; and Procter & Gamble.
Those successes were underpinned by THG Ingenuity’s tie-up with AutoStore.
One senior analyst added: “Matt realised Ingenuity could sell products for other people. It could offer best rates for courier services. The reason Matt loves Ingenuity is they take a revenue share of the retail business of their customers.”
Opinions on Ingenuity varied from a global game-changer ripe for take-off or a ‘poor man’s Shopify’.
That was why THG’s announcement in September 2024 to the London Stock Exchange that it would be demerge Ingenuity from its eCommerce business was so seismic.
The merger was voted on in January 2025 and THG’s inclusion into the FTSE 250 Index was confirmed for March 21st.
Analysts have predicted good things ahead for THG – although it’s hard to believe its share price will ever return to its 2020 IPO price of 500p.
Throughout his career Moulding has never lost the ability to surprise.
In 2023 there were more than a few raised eyebrows when he bought loss-making London business newspaper CityAM in a pre-pack deal.
The Guardian’s Nils Pratley wrote at the time: “The retail billionaire’s newspaper deal looks like an indulgence when his core business needs attention. Moulding should be using his own money, not his shareholders.”
Moulding was unrepentant and used the first anniversary of the deal to claim CityAM was now ‘Britain’s No 1 business media outlet’ – making THG the UK’s No 1 publisher of business news.
“Well that brings a smile to a few faces,” he concluded.
In 2024 Moulding sold the business park he owns next to Manchester Airport for £180m. RN3 Partners completed the acquisition from Moulding Capital – marking the largest industrial transaction in the North this year.
He said it was a good time to sell as stability returned to the property market.
Moulding had previously announced that he’d pledged £10m of his own money as part of a £75m fundraise to facilitate the demerger of Ingenuity.
In 2020 he and wife Jodie established The Moulding Foundation to enable disadvantaged people in the North of England to achieve their full potential.
The Foundation has pledged over £10m to charities and good causes, including £3.5m to the construction of Embassy Village, a scheme to provide housing for Manchester’s homeless.