Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley could face a shareholder revolt this week at its annual general meeting September 2, 2018 Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley could face a shareholder uprising at the retail giant’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday. Influential shareholder advisory groups ISS and Glass Lewis have both urged investors to vote against Mike Ashley’s re-appointment as chief executive and have also come out against chairman Keith Hellawell. Ashley, who is currently struggling [...]
Mike Ashley will be absent from this year’s Sports Direct AGM August 31, 2018 Mike Ashley will not face investors at this year’s Sports Direct AGM, due to “overriding demands on his time”. Chairman Keith Hellawell will chair the meeting on 12 September as planned, but the company’s founder and chief executive will be absent, Sports Direct said in an announcement this afternoon. Mike Ashley’s acquisition of House of Fraser at the [...]
How Brentford play the transfer market to overachieve in the Championship and turn a profit August 28, 2018 Outside of Staffordshire and west London, Ryan Woods’s move from Brentford to Stoke City on Saturday didn’t cause much of a stir. Here was a talented central midfielder swapping one Championship side for another on loan, with the 24-year-old set to sign for a fee in the region of £7m in January once the transfer [...]
Sports Direct slams ‘greedy’ House of Fraser landlords August 28, 2018 Mike Ashley's Sports Direct has slammed "greedy landlords" as the group conducts discussions over the future of 59 House of Fraser stores. Several branches of the department store chain which were due to close in early 2019 have been given a reprieve after the new owners negotiated with landlords. But the fate of several shops [...]
Sports Direct named least reputable retailer in annual rankings while Amazon takes top spot August 28, 2018 Sports Direct has been named the least reputable retailer in the UK after a survey of consumer attitudes. The sports gear retailer languished at the bottom of the rankings compiled by the Reputation Institute for its annual UK Retail RepTrack. Sports Direct scored poorly on four measures: workplace, governance, citizenship and leadership. It comes just weeks after [...]
Two House of Fraser distribution centres have reopened August 24, 2018 Two of House of Fraser's distribution centres have re-opened after a dispute with its logistics provider resulted in customer orders being cancelled. The sites in Wellingborough and Milton Keynes have re-opened today, Drapers reported. This follows a weeks-long standoff with XPO Logistics, which owns and operates the warehouses. Earlier this week, The Times reported that Mike [...]
DEBATE: Is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley the best person to turn House of Fraser around? August 23, 2018 Is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley the best person to turn House of Fraser around? YES, says David Blair, global chief executive of FITCH. The British high street is crying out for a saviour, and why shouldn’t it be Mike Ashley? He’s a shrewd retailer driving Sports Direct to win against new-age competitors like Amazon. Ashley [...]
Target hits the bull’s-eye with highest same-store sales growth in 13 years August 22, 2018 Target has bucked the retail trend to publish strong sales growth today, reporting same-store sales that were higher than any it recorded in the past 13 years. The New York-listed retailer, the second largest in the US, saw same-store sales grow 4.9 per cent year-on-year in the three months ending early August, with the company crediting increasing [...]
La Liga to play matches in the US: Why the Premier League will be watching Spanish football’s stateside experiment closely August 22, 2018 The hackneyed joke about Spanish football’s top flight used to be that there was only one fixture worth watching: the bi-annual collision of domestic superpowers Real Madrid and Barcelona. La Liga’s announcement today that it is to stage matches in the United States has rubbished that notion further still – there will be no shortage of [...]
Debenhams names new finance boss August 22, 2018 Debenhams has named Rachel Osborne as its new chief financial officer at a crucial time for the retailer amid the crisis on the high street. Osborne is currently finance boss of Domino's Pizza Group, but announced a sudden departure in June, sending the company's shares down five per cent. She was the third CFO of Domino's in [...]