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BRTAIN'S MOST SECRETIVE BILLIONAIRE(UNTIL NOW)(Evening Standard Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) STAFF at 370 sports stores across Britain, including Lillywhites at Piccadilly Circus, have had a pleasant surprise. For the first time ever, many of them have got to see their boss, Mike Ashley. A reclusive figure, in the past, Ashley has taken his desire for anonymity to extremes. At a charity dinner, organisers were instructed to remove his name from the list of winning bidders. Pictures of the event were also distributed. Missing from the snaps of the smiling diners was Ashley, the billionaire owner of the Sports World retail empire and some of the best-known leisure brands, including Dunlop, Slazenger, Donnay, Karrimor, Kangol and Lonsdale. As the head of a private concern, Ashley could maintain his wish for privacy. He doesn't have any shareholders to answer to, must not face the City, and need not issue an annual report - although others in his position, notably Sir Philip Green, have high public profiles. But at 42, he is having to decide what to do next. Part of that strategy may include listing his shares on the stock market in what could be a GBP2.5 billion flotation. Faced with that prospect, he has been forced to break cover. Last Friday, his newly appointed PR Andrew Grant of Tulchan, who also acts for Marks & Spencer and advised its chief, Stuart Rose, in his battle with Green - contacted the Evening Standard and said that Ashley would release a photograph. Still refusing to let photographers or journalists get close to him, however, he would not be posing or giving an interview. It was a picture taken the night before. There were also some accompanying words, which had to run alongside, about how he'd built up Sports World for 20 years as a private company and had previously no need to talk to the press. "Everyone can now see I'm just a normal bloke," he said. This photograph says much about Mike Ashley. It's been snapped quickly on the pavement outside Lillywhites. He's wearing a casual shirt and jeans. He looks like a geezer who likes a pint or three, rather than the billionaire controller of names that ooze sporting pedigree and prestige. Anyone would think it was Dave Forsey, his chief executive, the suited, tie-wearing man also pictured with Ashley, who was the sports stores king. Ashley seems embarrassed, almost like a member of the public who has won an in-store competition and, begrudgingly, is having to shake Forsey's hand and smile for the camera. In the background of the photograph can be seen a poster of a glamour girl wearing Lonsdale in Lillywhites' window, and this image speaks volumes about Ashley's treatment of Britain's most famous sporting store. He's owned the landmark for four years and in that time has driven it from upmarket traditional purveyor to one giant pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap, bargain warehouse. It's almost unrecognisable apart from the narrow floors and stairs from the historic family shop. Under its previous management, the emphasis was on the most English games of cricket, rugby and tennis. These days, it's about soccer, American football, basketball, trainers and replica shirts. The place is full of signs shrieking special offers. There's no distinction between Lillywhites and any one of the downmarket high-street sports shops, many of which belong to Ashley. There's no denying, though, his shrewdness as a businessman. Sales at Sports World International, his main company, were GBP905 million last year, producing profits of GBP74.5 million. Another of his firms, Brand Holdings, had turnover of GBP42 million. As for Lillywhites, before he paid GBP11.5 million for it in 2002 - he tabled the offer at lunchtime and closed the deal the following day - the old emporium, founded by James Lillywhite in 1863, was losing GBP6.5 million a year. Last year, under Ashley, it made profits of more than GBP3 million. Much of his money has come from buying clapped-out brands. There's a sense, as with the Lillywhites purchase, of no abiding passion in the object he's purchasing. When he bought Dunlop and Slazenger nearly three years ago, he paid GBP40 million for them both - regardless of the fact there were no properly audited accounts available for either. He's honed a policy of enticing shoppers with massive price cuts on international brands such as Nike, Adidas and Reebok, then once they're inside, hitting them with his own brands. There's no escaping, either, his aggression or ruthlessness. He's aroused controversy in the past by claiming a sale is a "closingdown" sale when a store was simply being renamed. And this Christmas, as other retailers wilt, he has gone on the offensive, issuing an order for a huge sales blitz in order to weaken rivals JJB Sports and JD Sports. Suppliers have been contacted and asked to send extra stock to Sports World as it aims, literally, to cram every bit of store space with merchandise, much of it at knockdown prices. It's almost like he wants to "own" sportswear. Since early last year he has opened 100 stores and his declared aim is one new branch a week. He's not afraid of making enemies. He enjoys a fierce rivalry with JJB creator and former professional footballer Dave Whelan, who, down the years, has been one of the biggest customers of Umbro, the shirt manufacturer. But six years ago, it was Ashley who, after a meeting with Whelan - the JJB and Wigan Athletic supremo mistook him for a gardener - and David Hughes, chairman of the since vanished Allsports chain, to discuss the pricing of Manchester United kit, alerted the Office of Fair Trading to alleged price-fixing of replica shirts. The subsequent investigation resulted in a GBP5.3million fine for Umbro, his supplier. The official report said that "Ashley operates largely informally, conducting business on his mobile phone and in meetings, while leaving it to others to make notes and sort out the details". He went to school in Burnham, in Buckinghamshire (his parents still live there). At Burnham Grammar, he stood out for his sporting prowess - he went on to become a county squash coach - and for his interest in business. Margaret Fleet, the deputy head, remembers how other children would have Saturday jobs in shops and that would be it. Ashley worked in a sportswear shop and used to say how, one day, he would own the shop. He started out with a chain of shops called Sports and Ski in the Eighties. They were re-branded Sports Soccer and then changed again, to Sports World. When he was 24, he married Linda Jerlmyr. They had three children and divorced in 2003. Friends say he was devastated by the breakup. She is thought to have collected GBP50 million in the private settlement, and has gone on to run her own successful property business. Mike and Linda have three children, Oliver, 16, Anna, 15 and Matilda, 10. Linda, 40, has used her divorce settlement to invest in property. The family home was El Remo, the GBP5 million house in Totteridge she built with her husband in 1991. It's on the site of pop impresario Mickey Most's home in The Close, a gated enclave behind The Orange Tree gastro-pub on the village green. She got to keep the house and, after a protracted planning battle with the council, is spending GBP6 million building a new home in the extensive grounds. It will have a lift, pool, spa, bowling alley, and six-hole golf course. When it's finished she will sell El Remo. Mike, meanwhile, has paid GBP12 million for another house nearby, also once belonging to Most. Linda also owns properties off Fulham Road in Chelsea and in her native Sweden. She is developing a nine-bedroom house near Port Andratx in Majorca, close to the holiday home of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. And she is building three similar houses at Camp de Mat in the north of Majorca. Her new partner is Simon Brodin, 34, with whom she has a one-year-old son, Tyler. Simon helps runs a soft furnishings firm, Ashley Wilde (the Ashley is his father Ashley Brodin). Three years ago Mike Ashley paid GBP1.9 million for a former 16-bedroom hotel outside Berkhamsted. Set on the edge of the Chilterns, it's approached by a long lane. Security around the rambling Victorian property is tight. It is surrounded by trees and CCTV cameras guard the entrance. Ashley keeps himself to himself, not mixing with the locals. He does, though, hang out in London, with close friends such as Paul Kemsley, the Tottenham Hotspur director. The St James's restaurant-casino Fifty is said to be a favourite haunt. For most of his career Ashley called himself sole trader, which meant he did not need to file detailed accounts. Through the Nineties, as he expanded his stores, his name, if not his image, became increasingly well-known in the industry. The idea that someone could create business employing 8,000 people in stores the length and breadth of Britain, not to mention overseas, and hold down a place in the Rich List without anyone having a clue what he looked like, was anathema to the business world. ALL REQUESTS for interviews with Ashley were refused. Calls were returned but only to tell the journalist to stop calling. Even his own colleagues in Lillywhites said they'd no idea who he was. "Easily Britain's answer to Howard Hughes," said Philip Beresford, compiler of the Sunday Times wealth ranking. There was something strangely appealing, in this age of image and media spin, about the notion of the totally secret billionaire especially one who so dominated shopping malls and high streets. He insists he has nothing to hide, that he is an ordinary chap who prefers to remain private. That may be so, but his next step may change all that. The whispering campaign that is suggesting Sports World may be worth GBP2.5 billion, is already raising eyebrows in the City. It's firmly on the high side - the published figures to date make GBP2 billion appear more realistic. Ashley's supporters maintain the price should be based on future growth, not where the company is at present. Ashley says: "I believe Sports World could be so much bigger. We are looking at expanding throughout Europe. We want to be the most profitable sports retailer in the world." On past form, nobody should doubt his intention but no one, not even Mike Ashley, can be world No 1 and get away with staying hidden. Copyright 2006 Evening Standard. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire. |