No less a paper of record than The Times has entered the fray of the still-raging debate over the sale of The Social Chain with a damning piece from James Hurley entitled “Why Steven Bartlett is not the tycoon he claimed.”
Prolific North reported last week how social media commentators were questioning the economics of how a company allegedly valued at close to £600m just a couple of years ago had been sold for just £7.7m, an argument Bartlett appeared to have dismissed with a lengthy online explanation of the corporate structure and business model of parent group Social Chain AG.
The rumours just won’t go away however. In a lengthy piece today, The Times reports, as Bartlett has already admitted, that he was no longer involved at The Social Chain AG when it achieved its multi-million valuation.
The Times cites data from Refinitiv, as well as a former Social Chain employee, to claim that Bartlett’s co-chief executive role at Social Chain AG following its merger was “largely ceremonial,” and that at the time of the Manchester agency’s merger with the larger German entity Lumaland Bartlett “owned less than a quarter of the Manchester group.”
There certainly appears to be a degree of smoke and mirrors around Bartlett’s actual worth, which The Times has, perhaps rightly, picked up on. The Social Chain founder, Dragon’s Den star and Diary of a CEO podcaster has made some hefty edits to the online biography on his own website since the Twitterati started delving into his affairs.
A lengthy response to one thread on Twitter, in which Bartlett appeared to successfully refute claims that he was not featured in Social Chain AG’s prospectus, the formal document that details share offerings and lists key shareholders, when it floated also appears to have been partly removed at the time of writing.
One can’t help questioning The Times’ motives, however. There’s no doubt that Bartlett can be a divisive character, and part of the reason for that is that he does seem to love bigging himself up. He’s hardly alone in the corporate world in having a high opinion of himself, however, and probably not alone in maybe, just maybe, somewhat exaggerating his achievements on occassion.
The Times piece relies heavily on social media quotes from Timothy Armoo, founder of the social media agency Fanbytes, essentially a direct competitor of The Social Chain. We quoted Armoo ourselves in last week’s piece, though given that Bartlett’s former rival may not be the most objective commentator in the circumstances we also took his version of events into account.
It’s worth noting too that Wanja Oberhof, who was very definitely the CEO of Social Chain AG during its most successful times, has jumped to Bartlett’s defence, describing the ongoing online debate as “gaga”
A bit of gaga discussion here on twitter… @StevenBartlett and I scaled the business together as Co-CEO’s and he was essential to bringing it to EUR 650 mn valuation when we uplisted to @DeutscheBoerse. But haters will always hate… —— https://t.co/kahIVIhzxE
— Wanja S. Oberhof (@wso_) February 5, 2023
