Tycoons cash in £250m as shares soar at Hut Group
MAJOR investors in the The Hut Group have offloaded £250m of shares as they cash in on a surge in the company’s value since it joined the stock market in London last year.
scottish tycoon sir Tom Hunter, an early backer of the e-commerce business, bagged another £32m having sold £52.5m of stock when it listed in september.
Balderton capital, the venture capital firm which first invested in The Hut in 2010, sold £208m worth of shares – the first time it has reduced its stake.
A number of other smaller shareholders, whose names The Hut did not disclose, also sold some stock. In total, the group of investors offloaded 32.9m shares for 760p each – pocketing a total of £250m.
Hunter, once dubbed scotland’s first home- grown billionaire, owned his stake in The Hut through his investment firm West coast capital.
He originally sold £52.5m worth of stock during the initial public offering (IPO), and still has 14.8m shares worth £112m.
The 59-year-old, who began his own business selling trainers out the back of a van, built up sportswear retailer sports Division and sold it for £290m to JJB sports in 1998.
since then, he has invested in companies including shoe retailer office, BHs and Wyevale Garden centres – with varying success. He is now worth £625m, according to the sunday Times Rich List. That wealth was given a helpful boost by The Hut’s float on the London stock exchange last september.
It was the biggest IPO of the year, and made millions for backers including former Tesco boss sir Terry Leahy, Leahy ex-Debenhams chief executive Terry Green and entrepreneur oliver cookson. It was not disclosed whether they were among the shareholders who sold down yesterday. Leahy bagged £17m during the float, leaving him with 13.6m shares which would be worth £104m.
cookson, who founded nutrition brand Myprotein and sold it to The Hut in 2011, had pocketed £283m during the float – on top of the £ 58m he made from selling his business nine years ago.
His remaining 10m shares, assuming he did not sell any this week, would now be worth £76.5m. And Green, who made £6m, still had 2.5m shares in The Hut which would now be worth £19m.
executive chairman Matt Moulding ( right) owns an 8pc stake in the business he founded in 2004, worth £597m, and is in line to scoop a whopping £ 840m bonus payout in the spring. And despite governance concerns which have dogged The Hut and Moulding’s powerful position at its core, demand from investors so far has been strong – its shares have climbed from their IPO price of 500p to 765p, valuing the business at £7.4bn.
In an effort to improve the company’s governance, The Hut this week appointed its promised independent director, former Bupa executive Tiffany Hall.
And it seemed Balderton and Hunter were keen to capitalise on some of the gains made. Usually, investors who were already backing a company at the time of its IPO must agree to a ‘lockup’ arrangement.
This means they must hold on to their remaining stake for a specified period, to prevent them dumping all the shares on to the stock market on the first day they trade. But Balderton, Hunter and the other selling shareholders were granted waivers to their lock-up arrangements, within certain restrictions, allowing them to sell some shares ahead of time.
They had originally planned to flog 25.5m shares, as banks working on the deal started touting them to new investors on Wednesday evening.
But such was the interest from buyers who wanted to snap them up that they eventually offloaded 32.9m. A source close to the process said the demand had been seven times higher than the number of shares sold.
But some in the city are still waiting to see whether The Hut proves to be worth the clamour.