The billionaire boss of beleaguered e-commerce firm THG has taken an £18m loan from Warrington Council, with his firm Moulding Capital now sitting as the council’s biggest credit exposure.
Matt Moulding, who founded THG in 2004, borrowed the cash from the council earlier this month via Moulding Capital Limited, the Mail on Sunday first reported.
The fresh £18m was the latest in a spate of borrowing from the council that has topped £200m.
Council documents say the new loan is ‘fully secured… against a portfolio of real estate assets’, the Mail on Sunday reported, with Moulding having reportedly already paid back £25m of the original council loan.
A spokesperson for the council said it considered Moulding Capital to be a “good credit risk”.
The revelations of the Warrington loan follow a torrid year for Moulding and THG in which 83.6 per cent has been wiped off its share price.
The plunge sparked takeover speculation and Moulding said last week he had rebuffed a number of “unacceptable” takeover approaches for the firm which “failed to reflect the fair value of the group”.
The news delivered some brief respite for THG and sent its share price surging 15 per cent.
Moulding acts personally as THG’s landlord after he snapped up the firm’s warehouse and offices in a controversial deal before immediately leasing them back after it floated in 2020
The deal reportedly nets Moulding an annual rent of £19m and raised eyebrows in the city, but was signed off by the board on the grounds it slashed the company’s debt.
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