Guest Yerdas El Savon Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 He's a billionare, but not a good businessman? You realize those things can both be true? That might be, but to say a self made billionaire is a poor businessman is a bit too far imo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackyboy Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Mike Ashley is a gambler, he's won a lot and will lose a lot but that's the way he operates. His plan regarding transfers, picking up young talent cheaply from abroad and seeing their value increase could actually work. Problem is for it to work he needs a good coach/manager to handle and develop these players. Look at HBA, an incredible talent but Pardew couldn't handle or develop him and neither could Bruce when he went to Hull. My niece is a season ticket holder at Aston Villa and she says Bruce brought in some good players but basically didn't know how best to use them and they finished up being benched. That could well happen to Almirion if he fails to score early on in the season and loses his confidence Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stifler Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Buying Jack Wills. Another shit brand Quite popular though, most skinny people between the ages of 13-21 have a wardrobe full of their stuff. It would be interesting to see what he does with it, most brands he buys he cheapens the quality and look of, though his Flannels stores sells other brands well. I’m not sure he’d be able to own a brand and not be wanting to cut corners with them. Might be popular but it's not a viable business hence the administration. Brick and mortar stores need to come up with a new strategy if they're to somehow compete with online. Could be in admin because of mismanagement. Jack Wills has a decent online profile. There is always offers and students can save in purchases with them. Again, everything comes down to how he manages it, personally I think he would be wise to just address the issues that led to it being placed into admin, and to run it separately. If he turns it into Everlast and sells via SD, he’ll ruin the brand and the customers won’t go for it. A lot of people buy theirs stuff because they want joggers that don’t make them look like a chav. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
geordiedean Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Buying Jack Wills. Another shit brand Quite popular though, most skinny people between the ages of 13-21 have a wardrobe full of their stuff. It would be interesting to see what he does with it, most brands he buys he cheapens the quality and look of, though his Flannels stores sells other brands well. I’m not sure he’d be able to own a brand and not be wanting to cut corners with them. Might be popular but it's not a viable business hence the administration. Brick and mortar stores need to come up with a new strategy if they're to somehow compete with online. Could be in admin because of mismanagement. Jack Wills has a decent online profile. There is always offers and students can save in purchases with them. Again, everything comes down to how he manages it, personally I think he would be wise to just address the issues that led to it being placed into admin, and to run it separately. If he turns it into Everlast and sells via SD, he’ll ruin the brand and the customers won’t go for it. A lot of people buy theirs stuff because they want joggers that don’t make them look like a chav. Its aimed at a select demographic though skinny students mainly very much like Abercrombie. If you're over 25 and carrying any extra timber no way can you or would you wear that crap Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister_Glass Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-adidas-and-nike-will-not-play-ball-with-mike-ashley-r3phl9px7 Why Adidas and Nike will not play ball with Mike Ashley The Sports Direct tycoon is raising his game to appease the sporting goods giants that have shunned him for so long, reports Sam Chambers. With its giant branches of TK Maxx and Poundland, Thurrock’s tatty retail park is a big draw for the bargain-hunters of Essex. For Mike Ashley, it is ground zero in his battle to polish up the country’s grubbiest sports retailer. Thurrock’s new-look Sports Direct store features some unusual flourishes. Greenery dangles over the edges of soft lighting fixtures. On the artificial grass of the football area, children recline in leather dugout-style seats while staff fetch their preferred boots. If they get bored, they can immerse themselves in the neon-lit gaming arena while their parents charge their phones. There’s not an oversized Sports Direct mug in sight. However, Ashley’s true targets are not the shoppers of Essex, but Adidas and Nike, the giants of sporting goods, which systematically deprive him of their most desirable tracksuits and trainers. At a shambolic results presentation on July 26, the 54-year-old conceded his charm offensive was not going well. “The next generation of consumers do not want the old Sports Direct way of shopping,” said Ashley. “They [Nike and Adidas] have good brand representation in the market with the likes of JD Sports and Foot Locker. So they have got this distribution, they are very comfortable with that . . . why do they need to distribute over here? They are taking it slowly and naturally we want to push faster.” Sports Direct’s results had been delayed because of a surprise £605m bill — roughly half the value of the entire company — received from Belgian tax authorities the previous day. Since that bombshell, Ashley has been furiously investigating who at Sports Direct knew about the issue, which dates back several years — and why they didn’t tell him. The sense of chaos was deepened by the disclosure that House of Fraser, bought out of administration for £90m a year ago, had lost £55m in eight months, and was in such a bad state that Ashley could not provide financial forecasts for the current year. Since the results delay, Sports Direct’s shares have fallen 8% to close at 221p on Friday. However, the admission that Nike and Adidas are reluctant to play ball has graver implications, threatening Ashley’s strategy to improve Sports Direct, which has been left behind in the athleisure boom. Sports Direct remains the core of his empire. Sales from his UK Sports Retail division, largely comprising Sports Direct, contributed £2.2bn of the group’s £3.7bn sales last year but fell by 1.6% on a like-for-like basis. Ashley charted a ruthless course to the top of the clubby sports retail industry, making his name after reporting rivals to the Office of Fair Trading for colluding to fix the prices of football shirts in 2001, resulting in multimillion-pound fines. He subsequently forced the likes of JJB and Allsports out of business with savage discounting, funded through buying brands such as Slazenger and Donnay, then using the higher profit margins from those products to fund price cuts on goods from Nike and Adidas. After rivals went bust, Ashley would pick over the carcasses. When JJB collapsed in 2012, he bought all its stock and the fixtures and fittings in its stores. After liquidating the stock, Ashley allegedly sent a “wrecking crew” into unwanted stores to rip up carpets, take out air-conditioning units and destroy wall panels so that rivals would not want them. Even as the business grew at breakneck speed, Ashley and Sean Nevitt, his buying director, kept operating as market traders. Behind the scenes, acolyte Karen Byers kept staff in line. One former member of staff suggested that private investigators were hired to keep tabs on workers who were not trusted. Brands below the top tier bore the brunt of Ashley’s antics. He is said to have ordered a small shipment of Hi-Tec trainers, paying up front, before re-ordering a much larger quantity and delaying payment. Once the shipment was on the water, Ashley allegedly told Hi-Tec he no longer wanted the shoes — before offering to take them at a knock-down price. When Converse trainers were on trend, Ashley started buying additional pairs from eastern European wholesalers once he had sold his allocated stock. “The brands hated working with them because they didn’t engage with people in a credible way,” said a former insider. “We would spend a huge amount of time building up relationships which they would then just tear down . . . Mike felt he was too powerful for anyone to say ‘no’.” To combat the growing threat to their brands, Nike and Adidas, which generated a combined £52bn of sales last year, instituted a hierarchical system categorising retailers according to the quality of products they would receive, hampering Sports Direct’s ability to keep pace with the growth of rival JD Sports. According to Berenberg analyst Graham Renwick, about a third of the Nike and Adidas ranges sold in JD are exclusive. Sports Direct has become more of a dumping ground. JD Sports’ market value is now £6.2bn to Sports Direct’s £1.2bn, its share price having multiplied by 25 times in 10 years. “They [Nike and Adidas] still depend on Ashley because he mops up all their mistakes,” said a former Nike executive. “If they need to sell an extra 50,000 pairs of shoes to hit quarterly numbers, they will be straight on the phone to Mike.” Feeling marginalised, Ashley began flexing his financial muscle, spending about £200m on a stake in Adidas in 2007 in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to exert influence over the German powerhouse. Two years later, Ashley’s Newcastle United dropped Adidas as its kit manufacturer, ending a 14-year deal. Adidas subsequently refused to supply Sports Direct with Chelsea’s home kit. Despite those bumps, Sports Direct motored on with little competition at the cheap-and-cheerful end of the market. A wake-up call came in 2017, when Nike chief executive Mark Parker warned that “undifferentiated” and “mediocre” retail would not survive. He said the American giant would move its resources towards its own stores and those of a select group of distinguished retailers. Since then, JD has moved to acquire the US chain Finish Line, which has 529 stores, for £400m, while Amazon has struck supply deals with Nike and Adidas. Sports Direct’s answer is a strategy to “elevate” its stores with concepts such as the one in Thurrock. The effort is being led by Michael Murray, a 30-year-old property developer who is the partner of Ashley’s daughter and was paid £5.4m this year. Murray said he wasn’t interested in the Sports Direct “of old” and was focused on “elevating every aspect of the business to future-proof it”. Last month’s results presentation was held at Sports Direct’s new industrial-chic headquarters in London’s Soho. Ashley has declined to take an office there, and there is no room for Byers, who called time on 28 years as Ashley’s right-hand woman after finding herself marginalised by the new strategy. Murray has overhauled 20 of Sports Direct’s 487 UK stores and plans to renovate a further 30 this year — but concedes that significant headway with Nike and Adidas is unlikely until they are much further down the track, and that the limited co-operation to date means the level of expenditure is unjustifiable. Ashley’s strategy will be a long, costly endeavour — but history shows that the belligerent billionaire will move heaven and earth to wrest back the advantage. Rotund rivals fall out of love One person unlikely to shed a tear for Mike Ashley is Sir Philip Green. The rotund tycoons were frenemies for years. Green, owner of Arcadia, Topshop’s parent company, helped Ashley float Sports Direct for £2.2bn in 2007. A few weeks later, Ashley attended Green’s 55th birthday party in the Maldives, where he managed to offend another guest, Bob Wigley, the Merrill Lynch banker who had run the listing. He later apologised after being ticked off by Green. The two emperors — Green called himself “Big Emp”, while Ashley was known as “Junior Emp” — fell out in 2016 when Ashley tried to buy the department store BHS from under Green’s nose by dealing directly with new owner Dominic Chappell. They clashed again last year when Ashley perceived that Green had blocked his efforts to buy HMV by using his influence over Hilco, the restructuring firm that had owned it since 2013. Green particularly hates Justin Barnes, the trademark lawyer who acts as Ashley’s fixer in deals and who led the attempted purchase of BHS. Green, 67, has told friends that Barnes has “f***** every single deal up” for Ashley, 54, who has never commented on Barnes’s role at Sports Direct. Green has watched Ashley’s move into department stores at House of Fraser with bemusement. The pair exchanged brief pleasantries at taxi millionaire Daryl Foster’s birthday party in Monaco in June but have not spoken since. A source said: “If Ashley wants to go and burn all his money doing stupid things, it’s up to him.” Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattoon Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 I was just reading excerpts of that on twitter, interesting notes on Barnes. Sounds like a matter of when, not if his empire implodes at this rate. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stifler Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 One massive mistake in that article. Micheal Murray is not a property developer, his dad is. He was never involved in his dads business, his dad viewing him as childish and irresponsible. Instead his dad funded his life abroad, going to different party destinations. He did DJ work in his spare time and that’s where he met Ashley’s daughter who was on holiday with her friends. He was able to put Ashley’s son in touch with some DJ’s in order to kick start his DJ career. Mike returned the favour by giving him a job at SD so that he could return home to a job to be with his daughter. No one, not even Micheal or even his father expected for Ashley to give him a job high up, they were expecting a job in name, instead Ashley walked into the HQ and told everyone that unless Mike says otherwise, whatever Micheal said, goes. Ashley put a Ibiza DJ wannabe who’s own father did trust, in charge of a multi-million pound business because his daughter was fucking him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
geordiedean Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 So he runs us exactly the same way he runs every other business no wonder we lowball every selling club and it takes us a fucking eternity to do a buying deal Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Crooks Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Sweet gig that like his daughter is canny hot Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stifler Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Sweet gig that like his daughter is canny hot Aye, great for him. The thing is though, it would not surprised me to see him take charge of us in future. Him being in charge of SD is clearly affecting them, there will come a point where Ashley is forced to drop him from SD, and instead of dropping him altogether, I’d imagine he’d just be transferred across to us, where Ashley doesn’t care if we succeed or not. We can only hope his daughter drops him before that happens. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Seriously though what the fuck happened to the takeover. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicane Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Just gotta #wait man, any day now I'm sure Right Godzilla? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
loki679 Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Mike's that uncle at family gatherings who keeps bringing up 'the incident' and can't take the hint from all the we don't talk about that looks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
r0cafella Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Seriously though what the f*** happened to the takeover. Same thing that happened to all of the others Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmojorisin75 Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Some sweet moves by JD Sports mind, worth 5x SD, Ashley must fucking hate that :sweetness: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raconteur Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 I was just reading excerpts of that on twitter, interesting notes on Barnes. Sounds like a matter of when, not if his empire implodes at this rate. Aye, that was my takeaway from that article too - surely a man can only make so many colossal mistakes? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest neesy111 Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 In pole position to buy Jack Wills: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-49206740 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interpolic Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Never heard of him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Great guy Mike. Let's hope he uses some of the money from the land sale to help get it over the line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest neesy111 Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Great guy Mike. Let's hope he uses some of the money from the land sale to help get it over the line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incognito Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 In pole position to buy Jack Wills: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-49206740 Fair play to the ginger shite for making one at such a young age. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_69 Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 The best business people do it time after time after time, often diversifying into different industries when they spot opportunities. Fat Mike has done it once (albeit very well) and has fucked up everything he has touched since. I think we can safely say luck and timing had a lot to do with his success. The likelihood of him being able to repeat it is pretty slim IMO - his decision making is awful, his people skills are non-existent and he's clearly not very intelligent. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Crooks Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Being a ruthless cunt will only get you so far amongst savvy types Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yerdas El Savon Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 He's a billionare, but not a good businessman? You realize those things can both be true? That might be, but to say a self made billionaire is a poor businessman is a bit too far imo. Self made? His parents remortgaged their house to give him the money to open a shop. Which he never paid back. A real tale of rags to riches Where does it say he never paid them back? They gave him a 10k loan. I can’t find anything on him not paying it back. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest poor Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 as much as i hate the bloke, they come to every home game and have their own private box. doesnt seem like he has a bad relationship with them Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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