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Yougov is facing calls to sack its boss and kick off an “urgent strategic review” from an activist investor today after a dramatic fall in its share price over the past year.
Gatemore Capital Management, an activist investment firm which owns around 1.3 per cent of Yougov, wrote to the company’s board demanding that boss Steve Hatch is ousted from his role and replaced by co-founder and former CEO Stephan Shakespeare.
The calls come after a torrid year for the opinion polling firm in which its sales have slowed and shares have fallen by more than 60 per cent. After a profit warning to the market in June, shares in the company fell more than 40 per cent in a day.
“We hold strong convictions that Yougov is an attractive business with strong fundamentals and exceptional potential, but a number of management missteps have created a critical and widening gap between its intrinsic value and lacklustre share price performance,” Liad Meidar, Gatemore’s managing partner, wrote in the letter.
Since Hatch’s appointment as chief in August 2023, Yougov’s shares have lagged behind the FTSE 250 and AIM All-Share indices by 67 and 56 percentage points, respectively, he added
The activist investor claims to have built a base of support among Yougov’s shareholders which it says are supporting its push for leadership change.
“In short, the current CEO’s first 18 months at the helm have been a disaster, and we believe the market has lost faith in his leadership,” Leidar said. “We must not allow YouGov’s extended period of operational underperformance and share price stagnation to persist, as it would further erode what is left of stakeholder trust and impede a successful strategic review.”
AIM-listed Yougov, founded by Shakespeare and former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi in 2000, currently trades at a market capitalisation of around £440m after shedding more than 75 per cent of its value from a peak in 2021.
The latest barb from Gatemore comes after the investor flagged concerns over its performance in a presentation to shareholders in November.
In the letter today, it said budgeting failures, a “massive cost overhang”, mishandled investor communications, and “volatile financial guidance” were among the reasons the company has struggled under Hatch.
Yougov did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
