Mike Ashley (businessman)

Michael James Wallace Ashley (born 1963) is an English billionaire retail entrepreneur, in the sporting goods market. He is also the owner of Newcastle United F.C after paying around £134 million to buy the club.

Ranked 25th in the 2007 version of the Sunday Times Rich List with estimated wealth of £1.9 billion, Ashley is an intensely private person, who never attends industry functions or gives interviews. Philip Beresforde, who compiles the annual Sunday Times list, says neither he nor his staff have ever managed to contact Ashley, and describes him as "easily Britain's answer to the late Howard Hughes."

Biography

Ashley grew up in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, where his parents still live in a modest bungalow. He was educated at Burnham Grammar School.

Sports World International

After leaving school at 16, in the 1980s Ashley began opening Sport and Ski shops in and around London. The chain expanded quickly funded by private money, and by the late 1990s had rebranded the chain Sports Soccer and opened over 100 stores across the United Kingdom. As a sole trader and not having to file accounts at Companies House, little was known about him. The company attained limited-liability company status in 1999.

Nottinghamshire based group Sports Direct International Plc, with headquarters in Shirebrook, Mansfield has over 400 UK stores including the chains Sports World, Lillywhites (acquired in 2002), Gilesports and the Original Shoe Company. The group employs more than 20,000 people in the UK and at stores in Ireland, Belgium and Slovenia. In 2006 it over took JJB Sports as the UK's largest sports wear retailer. In mid-2006 it was also revealed that Ashley had held talks with John Hargreaves, founder of Matalan on both taking a 25% stake in the retail business and installing mezzanine floors in larger Matalan stores, on which Sports World outlets could be operated..

Ashley has made his money by buying brands. The first major brand he bought was Donnay. In February 2003 Ashley bought the Dunlop Slazenger brand for £40 million, followed up by acquiring outdoor gear manufacturer Karrimor in March 2003, Kangol for £10 million, boxing brand Lonsdale, most of these brands were bought from distressed sellers. After considering a takeover, Ashley took a £9 million stake and signed a long-term deal with Umbro.

Ashley has a 29.4% stake in Blacks Leisure, the owner of Millets and Mambo, and is thought to hold stakes in JJB Sports and 19% of JD Sports. "He likes to park his tanks on peoples' lawns", said a banker .

In late November 2006, a number of business newspapers reported that Ashley was looking at an IPO of Sports World International. He hired Merrill Lynch, who initially valued the group at up to £2.5bn ahead of the flotation on the London Stock Exchange . Floated at 300p, the shares initially performed poorly, on sentiment surrounding the sports retail sector, complaints about poor investor relations management, and concerns that the group's close-to-the-wind sales practices, such as "closing down" sales at branches that don't actually close, would receive greater scrutiny now it is a listed company.

Marketing tactics

Often derided as a Tesco like "pile it high, sell it cheap" merchant after his transformation of the croquet-set loving Lillywhites. The chain will often use a Closing Down sales tactic, and re-open in another location soon afterwards using another one of its brands. Customers are also drawn into the store by almost margin-less promotions on perceived high-value brands like Nike trainers and Adidas tops, making money for Sports World when they also buy an own brand item marked up at a substantial margin. The use of the brands are an important part of the business model, with Ashley making £10m from selling the intellectual-property rights to the Slazenger Golf brand to arch-rival JJB in 2005.

Whistleblower

Ashley turned whistleblower on industry rivals in 2000, handing the Office of Fair Trading evidence of business meetings held by sports retailers to fix the price of football shirts. Ashley attended a meeting at the Cheshire home of David Hughes, the chairman of now bankrupt rival Allsports. At the meeting Dave Whelan, the founder of JJB Sports, reportedly told Ashley: "There's a club in the north son, and you're not part of it."

Newcastle United

On 23 May 2007, Ashley bought 41.6% of Newcastle United F.C at one pound per share, for a total cost of £55,342,223, via his company St James Holdings Ltd. Under the terms of UK takeover law, having purchased more than 30% of a listed company, he is obliged to make an offer to buy the remaining shares at the same or a greater price. On 31 May it was reported that the Newcastle board were considering Ashley's offer.

On June 7 2007 it was confirmed that chairman Freddy Shepherd had agreed to sell his 28% share to Ashley, which left Ashley free to take control of the club.

As of June 15 2007, Ashley owned a 77.06% stake in Newcastle United and is on course to withdraw the club from the stock exchange having surpassed the 75% threshold required.

100% acquisition achieved in July, Ashley paying a total of around £134 million to buy the club.

Personal life

Little is known of Ashley's private life, except that his former home was a 16-bedroom former hotel in Buckinghamshire. It is known that he prefers casual dress of shirt and chinos or a track suit over a suit, and often carries his essential business tool of a mobile phone in a plastic carrier bag over a brief case.

At 24 in 1988, Ashley married Swedish property developer Linda Jerlmyr, and they have three children. When she divorced him 14 years later, he quietly agreed one of the biggest settlements in British legal history, reportedly handing over the family home, property and assets with total worth of £50million.

According to Guardian newspaper: "The secretive billionaire is thought to live alone in a large house on the edge of a Hertfordshire village. The building is hidden by trees, and CCTV cameras keep watch over the locked gates at the entrance to the half-mile drive. Ashley's neighbours say they never see him. At the nearby pub, nobody has heard of him. When the local newspaper attempted to find out more about him a few months ago, they eventually resorted to placing an advert in their own pages appealing for information - No one responded.

In October 2007, it was confirmed that he had ordered a £20million Bombardier Global Express private jet.