Matthew Moulding: From Lancashire Roots to Building THG
The THG founder started in accounting, moved into mobile-phone distribution, then built one of Britain’s best-known online retail groups.
Last Updated on September 12, 2026 by Business Blog Media Editorial Team
Introduction
Matthew Moulding is a British entrepreneur and the founder and chief executive of THG plc, the company formerly called The Hut Group.
His story started far from London finance. He grew up in Lancashire, trained as an accountant, worked in mobile-phone distribution and then took a gamble on online retail in 2004. That small business later became THG.
The ride hasn’t been smooth. There was a huge London stock-market listing, billionaire-level paper wealth, a steep share-price fall, governance rows and a major business split.
He is still running THG today.
Quick Facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name | Matthew John Moulding |
| Known as | Matt Moulding |
| Born | February 1972 |
| Age | 54 as of September 2026 |
| Birthplace | Burnley, Lancashire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | University of Nottingham |
| Degree | Industrial Economics |
| Profession | Entrepreneur and business executive |
| Early career | Arthur Andersen and 20:20 Mobile |
| Company founded | The Hut Group, now THG plc |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Co-founder | John Gallemore |
| Current role | Founder and CEO of THG plc |
| Wife | Jodie Moulding |
| Children | Four, according to published reports |
| Charity | The Moulding Foundation |
| 2026 family wealth estimate | £675 million |
| THG economic interest | About 25.4% on a fully diluted basis in February 2026 |
Who Is Matthew Moulding?
He is best known for creating The Hut Group with John Gallemore in 2004.
THG didn’t start as the beauty and nutrition business people know today. Its early online shops sold entertainment products such as CDs, DVDs and games.
That changed over time.
The group moved heavily into beauty, skincare, health and sports nutrition. Brands and retailers linked with THG have included Myprotein, Lookfantastic, Cult Beauty, Dermstore and ESPA.
Moulding stayed at the centre of the company through its private growth years, its 2020 London flotation and the difficult period that followed.
Early Life in Lancashire
Matthew John Moulding was born in Burnley, Lancashire, in February 1972.
He grew up in the Lancashire area and attended Ss John Fisher and Thomas More Roman Catholic High School in Colne, commonly known as Fisher More.
His early background wasn’t built around investment banking or family wealth.
Published profiles describe his father as a tarmac contractor and his mother as someone who traded antiques.
That upbringing became part of his public business story later. He has spoken about having fairly ordinary career goals when he was younger.
Running a billion-pound listed company wasn’t the original plan.
Education
After school, he went to the University of Nottingham.
He studied Industrial Economics, a course combining economics with the way companies operate and make financial decisions.
That degree fitted his next move.
He entered accounting and trained with Arthur Andersen, once one of the world’s biggest accountancy firms.
He qualified as a chartered accountant in 1998.
Numbers came first.
Retail came later.
Career Before THG
Before starting his own company, Matthew Moulding worked within the Caudwell Group, the business associated with British entrepreneur John Caudwell.
He became chief financial officer of 20:20 Mobile, a mobile-phone distribution business.
He spent around eight years there.
The role gave him first-hand experience of finance, distribution, warehouses, suppliers and large commercial deals.
THG states that he later led the business through a sale valued at £365 million.
By that point, internet shopping was growing quickly.
He saw an opening.
Starting The Hut Group
Moulding and John Gallemore started The Hut Group in 2004.
Reports from the company’s early years say the business began with around £500,000.
The founders took personal financial risks too.
The first Hut website went live on 1 July 2004.
Sales didn’t suddenly pour in.
Moulding later recalled that the site recorded no sales on launch day. Paid advertising helped bring the first orders.
The early company sold entertainment products online.
Think DVDs. CDs. Games.
It also worked with established retailers and helped run online operations for companies such as Tesco, Asda, WHSmith and Argos.
But physical entertainment products had a problem.
Streaming was coming.
Digital downloads were growing.
THG had to change.
The Move Into Beauty and Nutrition
The company gradually shifted towards products people bought again and again.
Beauty worked.
Nutrition worked too.
THG bought businesses that later became central to the group, including Myprotein and Lookfantastic.
Myprotein grew into a major sports-nutrition brand with customers across many countries.
Lookfantastic became one of THG’s best-known online beauty retailers.
The company kept buying.
Its beauty portfolio later included names such as ESPA, Illamasqua, GLOSSYBOX, Dermstore and Cult Beauty.
The old DVD retailer was disappearing.
A much bigger consumer group had taken its place.
What Is THG Ingenuity?
THG built much of its own ecommerce software, warehouse systems, online marketing tools and fulfilment operations.
Those services were grouped under THG Ingenuity.
The idea was straightforward.
THG could use the technology for its own brands while selling ecommerce services to other companies.
Investor expectations became very high.
Japanese investment group SoftBank entered a deal that placed a large implied value on Ingenuity.
But questions followed.
Investors started asking whether the division’s financial performance matched those expectations.
The planned SoftBank investment in Ingenuity was later cancelled in 2022.
SoftBank also sold its remaining THG holding that year.
The Huge 2020 Stock-Market Listing
September 2020 changed everything.
THG joined the London Stock Exchange in one of Britain’s biggest flotations for years.
The company entered the market with a valuation above £5 billion.
Its share price climbed after listing.
Moulding became a billionaire on paper.
His compensation package also attracted major attention.
A share-price-linked incentive resulted in a share award reported at around £830 million.
At the time, THG looked like one of Britain’s biggest online retail success stories.
Then sentiment turned.
Fast.
Why Did THG Shares Fall?
THG’s share price began falling heavily during 2021.
Several concerns appeared at once.
Investors questioned Ingenuity’s valuation. They also examined company governance, property arrangements, profitability and the amount of control held by the founder.
Moulding originally held both the chief executive and executive chairman positions.
He also had special voting rights through a founder share.
Those arrangements became unpopular with parts of the City.
THG later changed its board setup.
Charles Allen, Lord Allen of Kensington, became independent chairman, while Moulding stayed as chief executive.
The founder share rights were also set to end.
THG’s market value fell sharply from its earlier highs.
That drop cut Moulding’s paper wealth by a large amount too.
Property Deals and Governance Questions
Another source of debate involved THG properties linked to its founder.
Before the flotation, some property assets were transferred into a business controlled by Moulding and then leased back to THG.
The arrangements were disclosed.
Still, critics questioned whether a listed company should be paying rent on properties connected with its own chief executive.
The issue became part of the wider debate around THG governance after the IPO.
His Relationship With the City
Moulding hasn’t hidden his frustration with London’s financial community.
He has publicly criticised short sellers, some analysts and parts of the financial press.
He has also spoken negatively about aspects of taking THG public.
That attitude has produced two very different views.
Some people see a founder defending his company against short-term market pressure.
Others think the clashes damaged THG’s relationship with investors.
Either way, the dispute became part of his public image.
The Ingenuity Split
THG later decided that its structure needed another big change.
The company announced plans to separate THG Ingenuity from the listed business.
That split was completed in early 2025.
After the separation, listed THG became much easier to understand.
Its two main areas are now THG Beauty and THG Nutrition.
Myprotein sits inside the nutrition business.
Lookfantastic, Cult Beauty and Dermstore are among the better-known beauty names.
What Is Matthew Moulding Doing Now?
As of September 2026, he remains founder and chief executive of THG plc.
He has stayed heavily invested in the company.
In February 2026, his family investment company bought another 24.4 million THG shares.
Regulatory filings put his total economic interest at about 454.3 million shares, or roughly 25.4% of THG on a fully diluted basis at that point.
That means he is still financially tied very closely to THG’s future.
The company’s 2026 trading has also drawn attention.
THG reported strong first-quarter sales growth, while its September 2026 half-year update showed adjusted earnings of £42.8 million, more than double the comparable figure from a year earlier.
So the business story is still being written.
Matthew Moulding Net Worth
There is no single public figure showing his exact personal wealth.
A better reference is the 2026 Sunday Times Rich List estimate, which placed Matt and Jodie Moulding’s combined wealth at around £675 million.
That was up from about £573 million in the previous year’s estimate.
This figure should be read carefully.
It is an estimated family fortune.
It is not the same as cash sitting in a bank account.
Much of his wealth has historically been connected to business holdings, property and THG shares, so changes in company valuation can move the estimate quickly.
At THG’s stock-market highs, his paper fortune had been reported at more than £2 billion.
Salary
His contractual THG base salary has been set at £750,000 a year.
But there is an unusual detail here.
He has waived most legally waivable salary since THG joined the stock market.
For 2025, company reporting states that he waived £726,386.
THG made a similar-sized charitable donation to The Moulding Foundation.
He also waived participation in the annual bonus plan for that period.
So the headline salary and the amount personally taken aren’t the same thing.
Wife and Family
Moulding is married to Jodie Moulding.
Public business documents identify her as his spouse.
Published reports say the couple have four children.
The family generally keeps private family matters away from business coverage.
Their adult son Max Moulding has appeared publicly as a trustee of The Moulding Foundation.
There is little reason to publish private information about the other children, since they aren’t central to his business career.
The Moulding Foundation
Matt and Jodie set up The Moulding Foundation in 2020.
The charity works with organisations helping disadvantaged people and communities, with a strong connection to northern England.
The foundation says it has pledged more than £10 million to charities and good causes.
One major commitment went to Seashell Trust, a charity working with children and young adults who have complex learning needs and disabilities.
The foundation pledged £5 million towards its work.
In 2021, THG also announced Moulding’s intention to transfer £100 million worth of THG shares to the foundation for charitable purposes.
Charitable giving has become a visible part of the family’s public work.
Business Style
Moulding has a reputation for being intensely involved in company operations.
He came from finance, so numbers matter to him.
Sales data matters.
Costs matter.
Daily performance matters.
He has spoken about changing a business idea when the facts stop making sense.
That thinking can be seen in THG’s history.
The company didn’t stay attached to CDs and DVDs after consumer habits changed. It moved towards categories where online demand had more room to grow.
That decision shaped the THG people know now.
Awards and Public Recognition
Moulding appeared in Retail Week’s Retail 100 for 2025, a list covering influential people in British retail.
His inclusion came after a period of major change at THG, including the Ingenuity separation and continued work around Myprotein and the beauty business.
THG itself has also received business awards, including a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
That award belonged to the company.
There is no reliable record showing that Moulding personally holds a knighthood, OBE or CBE.
Final Thought
Matthew Moulding’s career is unusual.
He began with accounting.
Then came mobile distribution.
Then online retail.
THG grew from a small internet seller into a listed group with major beauty and nutrition brands.
The 2020 flotation made him one of Britain’s richest business founders on paper. The years after that brought share-price falls, investor criticism and hard questions about how the company was run.
He didn’t walk away.
As of September 2026, he still leads THG and owns a large economic interest in the business.
That makes his future wealth and reputation closely tied to what THG does next.
FAQs
How old is Matthew Moulding?
He was born in February 1972, making him 54 years old in September 2026.
Where was Matthew Moulding born?
He was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England.
What company did Matthew Moulding start?
He co-founded The Hut Group, now called THG plc, with John Gallemore in 2004.
What does Matthew Moulding do now?
He remains the founder and chief executive of THG plc.
Who is Matthew Moulding’s wife?
He is married to Jodie Moulding.
Does Matthew Moulding have children?
Published reports say Matt and Jodie have four children.
What is Matthew Moulding’s net worth?
The 2026 Sunday Times Rich List estimated the combined wealth of Matt and Jodie Moulding at about £675 million.
What did Matthew Moulding study?
He studied Industrial Economics at the University of Nottingham and later qualified as a chartered accountant.
