Mike Ashley to relinquish director role on Frasers’ board
Frasers Group founder Mike Ashley will relinquish his role as a director on the Sports Direct owner’s board.
Ashley will not be standing for re-election as a director at the high street giant’s Annual General Meeting, Frasers announced on Tuesday.
The former CEO, who handed the reins of his retail empire over to son-in-law Michael Murray, will step down from the board after the AGM on 19 October.
Ashley said he was “100 per cent” committed to the group and would provide the House of Frasers owner with £100m additional funding, as well as continuing to advise management when asked.
“Since Michael Murray took over the leadership of Frasers Group earlier this year, the business has gone from strength to strength,” Ashley said.
Frasers swooped in to save the ailing fast fashion retailer Missguided this summer in a £20m takeover and last week made its return to the FTSE 100.
Earlier this year, new chief Murray asserted that Frasers’s former boss was “not pulling the strings.”
“I’ve definitely proved myself and my worth to the group. I think we’ve achieved so much over the last few years. Mike would never put me up to a job which he didn’t think I could excel in because I don’t think it’d be very popular around the dinner table,” he told the BBC in May.
Mike Ashley stepped down from his CEO job after decades as one of the high street’s most colourful characters
In recent years, the former Newcastle FC owner has snapped up several British brands, as high street firms faced collapse amid the pandemic and the rise of e-commerce brands.
“With our new strategy and leadership team, we are driving this business forward at pace and we are all excited for the future,” Murray added on Tuesday.
“We are grateful to have Mike’s support and expertise available to us as we continue the next stage of Frasers Group’s journey.”
The news was “not a game changer” in terms of daily operations, but it did mean Ashley would no longer “be a steady hand on the tiller for the strategic direction of the company,” Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst for Hargreaves Lansdown, said.