Monstermob Founder-CEO Gets Sack For “Poor Performance”

Wow….this was coming, with the rash of acquisitions that the company had done over the last couple of years, and the company’s rapid expansion outside of UK…Martin Higginson, the mercurial founder and CEO of the mobile phone content company Monstermob, has been sacked due to management differences over strategy (he was alleged to be UK centric) and poor performance of the company. Niccolo de Masi, who led the company’s aggressive acquisition strategy (formerly of JP Morgan) into high growth regions such as the US, China, Russia and the Philippines, will take over as the new CEO.
Monstermob’s share has fallen 67 per cent from a peak of 462.5p in September.
Higginson holds 12 per cent stake in the company. Hans Snook, the founder of the mobile phone company Orange and chairman of Monstermob, said the axing was “one the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made…(Higginson) was very UK-centric which became problematic.”
Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, owners of The Daily Telegraph newspaper in UK, hold a 4.65 percent stake in Monstermob through their venture capital vehicle TecCapital.
Reuters: The company was finding the UK market challenging after new regulatory controls were introduced last year. “The UK mobile media market has suffered from adverse market conditions and we have been incurring costs developing new services in response,” the company said in a statement.
Citywire: Chairman of the firm Hans Snook: “he issue was whether to focus on the UK or overseas which provides all our profits and where we believe the greatest opportunities lie…We have spent too much money launching a service in the UK when we did not have all our ducks in a row.”
Related:
Layoffs at Monstermob’s Lancaster Office
– For all stories we’ve done on Monstermob, go here.

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