Charles Allen – Lord Allen of Kensington, the former chief executive of ITV – hasn’t been entirely invisible in his new gig as independent chairman of THG, the Matt Moulding-led online beauty and nutrition retailer that has had a wild ride (mostly downwards) since arriving on the stock market in 2020 with a price-tag of almost £5bn.
Allen has shuffled a couple non-executives off the board and hired a couple of newcomers, thereby fulfilling his plan on appointment in March to “refresh” the lineup. But one might also expect a chairman of a company with THG’s share price – a humbling 52p versus the 500p listing price – to be more vocal. He is, after all, in his £400,000-a-year post to generate confidence among investors that Moulding’s tech creation will be more conventionally managed in future and will come good in the end.
