Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group bids for DW Sports
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has reportedly made a bid for DW Sports, the sports retail empire of his old rival Dave Whelan which collapsed earlier this month.
DW Sports announced it had appointed BDO as its administrator at the start of August. It said it would be winding down its retail business, with its website ceasing trading with immediate effect.
The group’s sister company, Fitness First, will continue to trade as a separate company. Its 43 sports clubs will be unaffected.
Frasers, formerly Sports Direct, has offered administrators more than £30m for the collapsed retailer, according to the Sunday Times. BDO are said to have been asking for around £20m.
It follows a series of deals Ashley has made during a crisis in the British high street, including for Evans Cycles and House of Fraser. There has been some speculation that Whelan’s family could buy back the business but an insider told the Sunday Times: “If they thought they were going to get an easy deal, they won’t now, because they’ve got competition.”
Retail and leisure businesses, which have already battled the shift to online, were hit hard by coronavirus lockdown restrictions in March. DW Sports was forced to shut its 73 gyms and 75 sports stores due to the pandemic. Just 42 of ts gyms and 44 of its stores are currently open.
Following the announcement, chief executive Martin Long said: “Like many other retail businesses, the consequences of this extremely challenging operating market have created inevitable profitability issues for DW Sports.”
The rivalry between Ashley and Whelan spans more than two decades. In 2000, the former Wigan Athletic owner Whelan told Ashley: “There is a club in the north, son, and you’re not part of it.”
The Sports Direct owner retaliated by exposing the scam to fix the price of football shirts, which led to multimillion-pound fines from the Office of Fair Trading to those involved, including Whelan’s JJB.
BDO was contacted for comment.