THG on warpath to prove collusion as firm hands City regulator data dossier
E-commerce firm THG has given a dossier of data to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), in a bid to prove hedge funds and stockbrokers conspired to push its share price down.
THG chief executive Matt Moulding believes a dossier of irregular stock market trading and short-selling data will prove collusion against his company, according to the Financial Times.
The City regulator is probing the actions of a sales person at Numis, after they urged clients to sell shares, claiming THG had accounting irregularities.
The firm had the largest IPO on the London Stock Exchange since 2013 when it listed in 2020.
A series of sell orders saw almost £2bn knocked off THG’s valuation within hours on the firm’s investor day on 12 October last year.
It followed reports over the value of THG’s tech licensing business Ingenuity, weak cashflow and a lack of robust corporate leadership.
Following the investor day, THG shares finished the day one third lower, in a major backfire of THG’s intentions to use the day to quash concerns over Ingenuity.
Moulding is suspicious his firm was the victim of an aggressive short attack, at the hand of the media, investment banks, hedge funds and fund managers.
A source close to THG told the FT newspaper the shares slump was due to co-ordinated sell orders organised to trigger automated trading algorithms that caused shares to plummet.