{"id":650540,"date":"2026-08-22T10:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/650540\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T10:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:14:16","slug":"why-mike-ashleys-luxury-retail-empire-is-going-cheap-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/650540\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Mike Ashley\u2019s luxury retail empire is going cheap \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Dickson Poon, the Hong Kong billionaire, paid the equivalent of \u00a3130 million (\u20ac151 million) at today\u2019s prices for Harvey Nichols 35 years ago, he said its shop in Knightsbridge, London, was \u201cone of the greatest stores in the world\u201d. He turned the department store frequented by Princess Diana<\/a> into a luxury group with six UK outlets and several international franchises.<\/p>\n

Harvey Nichols was acquired again last week, this time for about \u00a340 million in a pre-packaged administration \u2013 something akin to receivership in Ireland. The new owner is Frasers Group<\/a>, the UK company controlled by Mike Ashley<\/a>, who became a billionaire by building his Sports Direct<\/a> discount chain from one store into a multi-brand international retail group with a market value of \u00a33.6 billion.<\/p>\n

It is typical of Ashley to strike a bargain for \u201cHarvey Nicks\u201d. It still feels incongruous that a former squash coach known for cut-price retailing, a sharp eye for trading corporate assets and aggressive tactics towards rivals should own the genteel department store. As he told the FT recently, \u201cI\u2019m not Mary Poppins \u2013 when you get in a fight with me, I\u2019ll come back at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

His reputation for being a discount retailer is outdated. Frasers has been moving steadily upmarket under its \u201celevation\u201d strategy, led since 2022 by Michael Murray, chief executive and Ashley\u2019s son-in-law. It controls about 100 luxury stores, led by the Flannels department store chain, and has partnerships with brands such as Moncler, Gucci<\/a> and Burberry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Ashley, who is no longer a director of Frasers but holds a majority stake in the business, is as sharp as ever. Some of the luxury suppliers to Harvey Nichols are still smarting from Frasers\u2019 tactics after it acquired the Matches Fashion chain in 2023 and shut it down within months. It emerged with a profit, while they got pennies on the pound as trade creditors.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Harvey Nichols Dundrum will not accept gift cards bought before liquidators\u2019 appointmentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The road to Harvey Nichols stretches back a decade to when Sports Direct was overtaken by its smarter rival JD Sports<\/a>. Ashley had fallen out with suppliers such as Nike<\/a> and Adidas<\/a> over his ruthless discounting and messy stores. He saw that shoppers were no longer purely seeking bargains, but were increasingly being drawn by brands.<\/p>\n

His second insight was that of a value investor. High street retailing was shrinking and valuations were falling as ecommerce rose, giving him the chance to recycle Sports Direct\u2019s surplus cash into brands and physical stores. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a lot smaller pond, but [some] fish are going to be enormous,\u201d he remarked in 2019.<\/p>\n

This led to today\u2019s Frasers, which owns a range of brands and stores, including the House of Fraser chain. Sports Direct bought the latter out of administration in 2018, found it was in even more trouble than Ashley realised and scythed through it, closing stores and cutting jobs. Its deals have had mixed results, but it usually finds a way to extract some return.<\/p>\n

The strangest aspect of Frasers is that it also behaves like a corporate hedge fund, buying stakes in public companies including Mulberry, Boohoo (also known as Debenhams) and Hugo Boss<\/a>, the German brand. It launched a \u20ac2.7 billion takeover offer for Boss in June and this week announced that it had built its stake to 48 per cent<\/a>, despite getting a chilly response.<\/p>\n

The investments can turn out to be the prelude to a bid, as with Boss; an attempt to secure leverage over brands in Frasers stores; or simply Ashley\u2019s instinct for an undervalued asset (\u201cI just think it\u2019s very cheap,\u201d he said of his Boss stakebuilding). But they puzzle even his fans. \u201cWe see the individual pieces of the jigsaw, but only he knows the picture,\u201d one investor says.<\/p>\n

Ashley has a fearsome mystique. Clive Black, head of consumer research at Shore Capital, describes him as \u201ca terrible beauty\u201d. But his tactics do not do much for Frasers\u2019 rating as a public company. Many investors find it too opaque and unpredictable to touch, although its stock market valuation has risen by 20 per cent in a year amid its burst of deal making.<\/p>\n

The salutary comparison is Next<\/a>, another multi-brand retailer with a strong supply chain and logistics platform. Next has ascended steadily to a market capitalisation this week of \u00a318 billion \u2013 five times that of Frasers \u2013 thanks to consistent growth under Simon Wolfson, chief executive. Their operations have a lot in common, but there is a gulf between their styles.<\/p>\n

One answer would be for Ashley to take Frasers private again, although he denies even considering it. While Murray insists he is in charge, the hand of the founder is not well hidden. Frasers\u2019 purchase of Harvey Nichols may elevate its reputation, but do not expect Ashley to change his nature. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Dickson Poon, the Hong Kong billionaire, paid the equivalent of \u00a3130 million (\u20ac151 million) at today\u2019s prices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[11087,53381,79,18,11773,274921,19,17,149916,268880,23614,45319,14380,3439,203622],"class_list":["post-650540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-adidas","tag-burberry","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-gucci","tag-hugo-boss","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jd-sports","tag-mike-ashley","tag-next","tag-nike","tag-princess-diana","tag-retail","tag-sports-direct"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117138637916282599","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}