Monzo founder tells of a picky investor...
THE founder of monzo has claimed that an executive at SoftBank – the investment firm at the centre of a row over the future of tech giant arm – sat in a business meeting picking his feet.
Tom Blomfield, who set up the banking app in 2015, said the unnamed executive at Japanese giant SoftBank also smoked during the meeting. Blomfield had made an approach to SoftBank while attempting to raise funds to launch his business. He had already pitched ‘multiple times’ to the powerful investor, which backs Uber and WeWork, along with the British chipmaker arm.
He said: ‘It seemed like standard practice during my visits to the London office to make me wait in the lobby – often for an hour or more.’
Blomfield said in his blog: ‘The lead partner took meetings barefoot and would pick his feet incessantly.
‘During one meeting, he lit a cigarette and smoked it in his office, windows closed. He finally put it down in his lunch plate and poured his coffee over the cigarette to extinguish it.’
Blomfield said he ‘didn’t know if it was some weird power play or if he just lacked any kind of manners’.
He regretted not leaving the meeting, but didn’t want to ‘blow’ his chances of landing the investment.
Blomfield’s remarks have taken on extra significance as SoftBank has come under the spotlight over its plans for the future of arm, the UK’s flagship tech company. SoftBank plans to float the Cambridge-based firm in the US, in a body blow to the City. It had initially hoped to sell arm to US rival Nvidia but the $40billion (£30 billion) deal fell through. Blomfield stepped down as chief executive of monzo in may 2020 and handed the reins to TS anil, a former Standard Chartered banker.
THE former boss of the London Stock Exchange has called for a revamp of investment rules to keep tech stars such as Arm in Britain.
Xavier Rolet said successive Chancellors had missed chances to amend punitive taxes deterring fast-growing British gems from floating in the City.
Rolet, who led the LSE from 2009 to 2017, warned that London would continue to lose valuable firms due to the 0.5 per cent stamp duty when individuals buy shares. He said: ‘You can’t complain that the Arms of the world are going to list elsewhere, where equity markets are more developed. You need to cure that if you want to have a better chance of keeping these companies here.’
SoftBank, the Japanese investment giant that backs Arm, said this month it intended to float the Cambridgebased chipmaker in the US. The shock decision came after a £30billion sale to US giant Nvidia collapsed over competition concerns.
The Mail on Sunday is campaigning for investors and policy-makers to Back British Tech and convince SoftBank to list Arm in London. Rolet, 62, said the Government needed to abolish stamp duty when individuals buy shares to tempt firms to London. He said: ‘In 20 years there’s only one Chancellor that did something about this. George Osborne repealed stamp duty on AIM-listed stocks. We saw overnight a huge increase in retail share trading in these stocks.
‘UK equities are punished through stamp duty. The cost to the wider economy is far more substantial than what the Treasury collects.’
He added that individuals should be able to buy shares when companies float. Typically only large pension funds and professional stock pickers are given access initially, meaning armchair investors miss out on any jump in the share price on the first day of trading.