THG PLC (LSE:THG) shares jumped higher Tuesday after Japan’s Softbank agreed to sell its entire stake in the company to founder Matthew Moulding and the Qatar sovereign wealth fund, firing more speculation of a potential buy-out.
Softbank’s Northstar fund will sell its 80.6mln shares at a price of 39p per share, a discount to the closing share price of 46p overnight, with the deal expected to complete on Thursday, the company said in a statement on Monday evening.
Qatar Holding, a vehicle of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), bought 67.8mln of the THG shares for £26.44mln plus costs, to increase its stake.
QIA’s purchase was 92% cheaper than when it was a cornerstone investor of THG's initial public offering in September 2020, which was priced at 500p.
Moulding’s FIC Shareco family vehicle splashed out £5mln to grab the other 12.82mln of the Softbank shares, giving him a total of 320.93mln shares, of which 198.74mln are ordinary voting shares.
This means his total holding represents around a quarter of the capital of the group relative to the total voting-right shares.
Moulding, who it was noted has now made four investments in THG since IPO, having splashed out £38mln invested in August 2021, July 2022 and October 2022 as the shares have tanked, said: “I'm delighted to be further increasing my family's stake in THG, continuing our unswerving support following on from other recent share purchases."
He said QIA “shares the board's vision of the scale of opportunity for THG”.
THG shares rose 10% to 50.46p after an hour and a half of trading on Tuesday morning.
Analysts at broker Liberum Capital said: "On an underlying basis the group is cheap (especially if you apply an SOTP) but we see little catalyst coming from trading considering the consumer backdrop.
"However the further increase in Mouldings stake and by QIA may very well increase rumours that THG will be subject to a potential MBO or P2P [public to private transaction]."