Complicated finances leading to reduced transfer fund?

[JawD 31]

A FRUSTRATED Sam Allardyce has warned new Newcastle chairman Chris Mort that he has been given insufficient funds to strengthen his paper-thin squad.

 

The Sunday Sun understands that United manager Allardyce has been told his transfer kitty is far smaller than he expected, despite his desperately limited selection options.

 

It is thought that Mort and billionaire owner Mike Ashley have earmarked little more than a further £10 million for transfer fees and new wages.

 

Beyond that, a disappointed Allardyce believes he will have to generate his own funds by selling players — beginning with Kieron Dyer.

 

That is despite Newcastle’s net spending so far this summer standing at only around £1.7 million and the new regime having initially discussed providing a war chest of £40-50 million.

 

Sources suggest that Mort’s strategic review of United’s finances has prompted caution, with the club’s debts thought to be more complicated than first anticipated.

 

And that is posing Allardyce a potentially major problem.

 

The United boss reiterated last night that he is still trying to educate Ashley and Mort on the wisdom of buying big, saying: “They know very little of the football side and it’s for me to provide enough information to help them understand why I’m doing what I’m doing and where I’m going.”

 

Allardyce hopes to field Michael Owen in today’s friendly against Juventus at St James’s Park as the striker recovers from a thigh strain.

 

Juve’s United old boy Jean-Alain Boumsong is set to start on the bench.

 

 

Could be accurate or could be a smoke screen to stop selling clubs inflating their prices?

 

Either way the general feeling coming from the club on signings is pretty negative.

[ewerk 27045]

I don't think it's a smoke screen, I think it's clear that Sam isn't going to have huge money to spend, possibly even less than he was to have under Shepherd. Even if Ashley and Mort don't know much about football, it doesn't take a genius to see that our squad is perilously thin at the back and by the time this 'review' is finished it will be too late to get the players that Allardyce wants in for the coming season.

[Guest James_coDurham]

MORT OUT! ASHLEY OUT!

[Asprilla 96]

Fucking pricks.

[NJS 4026]

My honest response is that if this means that they write off all the debt including the ground extension then I'll put up with some cheap signings this window.

[tinofbeans 91]

guessed this was going to happen, however £10 million will get us 2 workmanlike defenders.

 

once we are (hopefully ) a bit higher up the table then we can maybe spend out a bit more...

[Jimbo 133]

Surely this is the price they are paying for not performing the "Due diligence" inspection of the clubs finances ?

[NJS 4026]

Surely this is the price they are paying for not performing the "Due diligence" inspection of the clubs finances ?

 

And probably more anti-Shepherd ammo in the long run.

[tinofbeans 91]

as an outsider looking in and knowing who run the club previously i'd have defo run over the clubs equity / assets and all other aspects of their finances with a fine toothed combe(or some decent accountants), its a given in modern business circles nowadays.

[Asprilla 96]

The guy's a BILLIONAIRE!! The quickest way to make money is to win stuff and we're not going to do that with the squad we've got.

 

 

Thumbs down for the new fat man...no style.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Asprilla's foreskin

[Fop 1]

Which means we're likely looking at a mid table finish and not challenging for Europe again.

[Glen 0]

We're not looking at much if our players are being asked to play in three different positions a game if someone gets injured.

[jaythesouthernmag 0]

If this is the case I will be a bit peed off but on the flip side we have proberbly got the best manager in the business for getting players in for next to nothing. Might be time to lower the expectations of the so called big names and concentrate on numbers or we could live to regret it.At least I reckon we will be banging in plenty of goals, hopefully more than we let in

[Rob W 0]

Given the lies that Fat Fred told about "no buyout cluse" in owen's contract it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't the odd skelton in the cupboard

 

But I suspectthe real reason is that the new finance man is taking the opportunity to make things look as bad as possible so that he can't be blamed - then when things look better later he puts it down to his efforts - we've all done it FFS

[Gemmill 36081]

Not really sure what to make of this. The £50m came from "a source close to Ashley", and it seems like this story is coming from somewhere similar, so we've no idea really of the truth in it or not. "The Sunday Sun understands" all the time, and it's very rare that they come anywhere near to the truth.

 

We'll see anyway. It wouldn't be a huge surprise to me if they wanted to be a bit cautious in this transfer window. Not ideal, but it's understandable, I suppose, that they don't want to come in and set a precedent of flinging cash around. I think they'll do what it takes to get the defenders in that Allardyce wants between now and the end of the window without doing anything overly extravagant, but I think they'll stretch to what it takes to get these players in (within reason). Which to be honest is all we really need them to do. Then we can re-assess things in January.

 

The quote from Allardyce in the article needn't be seen as a negative btw. It's just him being honest and saying that with new owners with no experience in football, he has to provide more info than he probably would to an experienced football chairman to back up his targetted signings. Which is fine.

[Dr Gloom 20232]

the lack of movement in the transfer market is worrying considering our squad is probably weaker than it was this time last season. the guy is a billionaire and needs to start splashing the cash sharpish - the likes of man city, pompey and man city are all spending.

[JawD 31]

Perhaps this also ties in with the KK rumour. It was said that Ashley might want his own manager in some time ago, also said that they would give Sam a chance. Perhaps they dont want to give Sam too much and would rather see how he goes first. As Gemmil says, give him a few defenders and leave it at that. Maybe not wanting to give him £30-50M if they have other plans next year etc.

[Chaser 1088]

The fact of the matter is that with our current squad we are not going to acheive a finish to get into Europe. To take this club onto the next level, that has to be the aim as better players come with European qualification. We need the players who will get us there, not world class but just decent players.

[Asprilla 96]

Shepherd IN!!

[Gemmill 36081]

Don't know if this has been posted, but it gives you an idea of what Ashley is like anyway. First time I've actually read any sort of interviews with him. BALLS OF STEEL BABY!

 

From The Sunday TimesJuly 29, 2007

 

Sports Direct’s Ashley hits back at City 'cry babies'

Mike Ashley has rarely spoken to the press, but now that the share price of his sports group has halved since the float in February, he explains why his City critics should stop whingeing and start thinking long termJenny Davey

JUST a week ago, Mike Ashley was basking in sizzling sunshine on the beach in Marbella, knocking back lagers and lime. He mingled with 200 guests at a party to celebrate the 40th birthday of Gadget shop founder Chris Gorman, then headed back to Britain on Sunday night.

 

But when the billionaire sportswear tycoon touched down at Luton airport, he didn’t expect that only 36 hours later he would be facing heat of a very different kind.

 

His company, Sports Direct, owner of the Lillywhites store in London’s Piccadilly and brands such as Dunlop, Slazenger, Kangol and Lonsdale, issued a profit warning last Tuesday that wiped 22% off its stock-market value in a day. The shares have more than halved in value since the firm floated in February and Ashley and his board have disappointed analysts with their reluctance to engage with the City.

 

Investors who backed the £2.2 billion flotation only five months ago have started baying for blood. Ashley received a mauling in the following day’s newspapers.

 

Related Links

Sports retailer Ashley says City is full of ‘cry babies’

On Wednesday evening, as he sat in the bar of the Four Seasons hotel on London’s Park Lane dressed in a casual shirt and ripped jeans, he was more determined than ever to rebuild his reputation and redouble efforts to turn Sports Direct into the world’s biggest and most profitable sports retailer.

 

“I’ve got balls of steel,” said Ashley. “Some investors have been great and have been very supportive. But some of these City people act like a bunch of cry babies. I’m not giving in. I think the shareholders will divide into two distinct camps. I want a loyal band of followers – long-term shareholders who aren’t on the phone every five minutes just because there’s a share-price movement up or down. Sports Direct should come with a government health warning – this stock is not for the fainthearted.”

 

It has taken Ashley more than two decades to build Sports Direct, so he finds the City’s short-term outlook dispiriting.

 

“I am building a long-term business,” he said. “I can’t spend all my time worrying if the share price goes up and down. It may drop to 80p, but over three years I am betting it will be nearer 800p. I have built the company over 25 years and I am planning the next 25 years. But all anyone wants to talk to me about is what happened in June.”

 

The criticism has come thick and fast over the past few days. It would be easy to forget that Sports Direct’s 2007 numbers were in line with City forecasts and the business delivered a 31.8% increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to £191m for the year to the end of April.

 

Instead analysts focused on the failure to release like-for-like trading numbers. Ashley insists like-for-like sale figures make no sense in sports retailing.

 

“Every other year there is a big football tournament, so you are always comparing a tournament year with a nontournament year. We have always said that we wouldn’t give the figures, but then people turn around and act surprised when we don’t.”

 

His unconventional style has come under fire, notably after it emerged that Ashley settled a row over fees by playing a game of spoof, the coin guessing game, with Simon Mackenzie-Smith, head of UK investment banking at Merrill Lynch.

 

“What do I regret about it? I should have said ‘three’,” Ashley quips. (Ashley guessed two and lost the game.)

 

Ashley, whose favourite song is Wild Boys by Duran Duran, courted further controversy by personally amassing a 3.14% stake in Adidas just weeks after the Sports Direct float. He admits he made a mistake but insists he subsequently offered the stake to the company at cost price but the deal was blocked by the board.

 

“It was showing a €50m (£34m) paper profit. I even guaranteed to take it back at the price paid if it fell in value,” he said. “Not taking it was the worst decision, in my opinion, in 25 years of the company.”

 

Then, at the end of last week Sports Direct splashed out £48m of company money to buy a 1% stake in Adidas, one of Sports Direct’s biggest suppliers – a move that provoked further howls in the City.

 

Another controversial deal has been Ashley’s personal acquisition of Newcastle United Football Club. Where Ashley does show contrition is over the poor communication with the City. Only weeks after the float he sacked his public-relations adviser, Tulchan. He then fell out with David Richardson, his nonexecutive chairman, who quit in frustration at the way Ashley regularly flouted corporate-govern-ance guidelines.

 

He regrets certain parts of Sports Direct’s stock-market debut – most notably not having an investor-relations executive in place before the float.

 

He is set to hire one soon and find a full-time chairman to help guide the business through its ambitious expansion plans.

 

Even though the company has halved in value, Ashley said he had no plans to take it private.

 

“The float has actually put Sports Direct back in some ways, but I see it as two paces forward and one pace back.

 

“The current share price is pathetic. I can’t think of many safer long-term investments at this price. What annoys me the most is that some people are saying they didn’t get what they bargained for. In my opinion they got exactly what it said on the tin.”

 

THE STORY of Ashley’s rise is an extraordinary one. He was only 16 years old when his parents, Keith and Barbara, mortgaged their bungalow and gave him £10,000 to buy the lease and stock of a sports store in Maidenhead, Berkshire, which he renamed Mike Ashley Sports.

 

His father was a production manager at Young’s Seafoods and his mum was a secretary, but this tightly-knit family put their backs into making the shop a success. Ashley’s dad did the books at the weekend and his mum often helped out in store.

 

There remains a family involvement – Ashley’s elder brother John is the Sports Direct IT manager. “He’s very academic – he’s an IT genius, genuinely. He’s like super-bright – the opposite of me. I call him Albert, after Einstein, because he is so brainy. I’m streetwise – he’s not streetwise – we complement each other,” said Ashley.

 

Bob Mellors, the finance director, nicknamed the Captain, has also been with Ashley since the start. The company’s board is a close-knit team and they often socialise with each other. “Some of our best nights out are impromptu – a few beers and then down the kebab shop. We still tell the same old stories, like the time I fell down the fire escape in the Maidenhead store and we still laugh and think it’s funny.”

 

Ashley was born in Walsall, but grew up in Burnham, near Slough. Never very academic, he left school with only one O-level, a C in economics and public affairs. He is not even sure if that is correct – maybe he got the C in the mock exam, he laughs.

 

One thing he did excel at was squash. He became a county coach but that ended when he began working at the sports shop full-time.

 

With the help of his parents, who showed unstinting support for their youngest son, he helped to build the store into Britain’s biggest sportswear retailer. By entrepreneurial flair and determination, he built a business with sales of more than £1 billion.

 

Ashley, nicknamed the Young Emperor by billionaire retail magnate Sir Philip Green, transformed sports retailing, buying brands such as Donnay, Lonsdale, Slazenger and Karrimor, and turning them, in effect, into his chain’s own labels. He has also bought up rival firms, including Hargreaves and Gilesports.

 

Sales and profits rose in a scarcely faltering upward trajectory. The success culminated in Sports Direct’s £2.2 billion flotation at the end of February.

 

Ashley has built a giant distribution centre in the unlikely outpost of Shirebrook, a former Derbyshire pit village.

 

Using his muscle as the biggest sportswear retailer in Britain, Ashley sources his stock cheaply direct from the Far East. He uses those cost savings to slash the prices of big brands such as Adidas or Nike. Once the customers are instore, the hope is that they will also buy some of the brands he owns.

 

Bit by bit, Ashley, who jets around in a company helicopter, is adding new brands – in the past few weeks alone snapping up Field & Trek and Everlast, the American maker of boxing equipment, and entering talks to buy Evans Cycles.

 

“We describe the plan as like a jigsaw or a mosaic. First of all we need to get all the pieces together. And it takes an awful lot of pieces to become the world’s biggest sportswear retailer.

 

“It’s a bit like I was a good squash player in Slough . . . but was I any good nationally? I was not really in their league. It’s a good analogy. Getting to be No 1 in the UK is one thing, but getting to be No 1 in the world is on a totally different scale.”

 

ASHLEY pocketed more than £929m from the Sports Direct float but he retains a 57% stake in the listed company and remains as down-to-earth now as the day he started in business, according to friends.

 

Ashley insists he hasn’t been on a big spending spree since the float. “You have to remember that I wasn’t exactly skint beforehand. You can do exactly the same with £100m or £1 billion. I’m not being funny but you struggle to spend the interest on £1 billion.

 

“I bought myself a red Ferrari for my 40th birthday and I go to fabulous places and I don’t have to worry about what they cost. I go to Sandy Lane or to Mauritius, but I first went there when I was 18.”

 

Family remains critical to Ashley. He has three children – Oliver, 17, Anna, 15, and Matilda, 10 – from his marriage to Linda, which ended in 2003 with a £50m divorce settlement.

 

He has no plans to remarry at the moment. “I can afford many things but getting married isn’t one of them and I’m talking from experience,” he jokes.

 

“My two loves are my business and my kids.” His children spend most weekends at his home in Totteridge, north London, which was once the residence of the record producer Mickie Most.

 

This summer, as every year, he will spend three weeks with the children in California.

 

When Ashley isn’t working or with his family, he is out partying or gambling with his best friend Paul Kemsley, the Tottenham Hotspur director and property entrepreneur. The pair regularly spend nights at the Fifty club in St James’s.

 

“Many of the most successful people I know are gamblers,” he said. “My view is that when you get up on Monday morning you are in the risk business. But there is a fine line between an entrepreneurial investor and a gambler.”

 

“People say: how do you play poker? My answer is ‘all in’ – I’ve always been the same.”

 

By his own admission Ashley is consumed by a “ferocious” desire to succeed. He believes that one day Sports Direct could be a £4 billion company.

 

His blueprint for the future is clear – Sports Direct will need to expand into mainland Europe, take 100% ownership of more brands and acquire large strategic stakes in others. Will the plan for global domination succeed?

 

“My view is that if we fail we will still achieve a lot more than we would have if we didn’t try. I have spent most of my life attempting the impossible and missing, but achieving the nearly impossible.”

[Fop 1]

The fact of the matter is that with our current squad we are not going to acheive a finish to get into Europe. To take this club onto the next level, that has to be the aim as better players come with European qualification. We need the players who will get us there, not world class but just decent players.

 

 

If we had no injuries next season (and everyone else has the normal number) we could squeak into Europe I guess (although given how many we have already I think that is unlikely).

 

 

But if we have the same number of injuries as LAST season (or even just as many as several of our injury crisis seasons in the last 10 years) we could be looking over our shoulder at relegation.

 

 

The odds I guess favour something in the middle and a mid-table season.

[Asprilla 96]

Don't know if this has been posted, but it gives you an idea of what Ashley is like anyway. First time I've actually read any sort of interviews with him. BALLS OF STEEL BABY!

 

From The Sunday TimesJuly 29, 2007

 

Sports Direct’s Ashley hits back at City 'cry babies'

Mike Ashley has rarely spoken to the press, but now that the share price of his sports group has halved since the float in February, he explains why his City critics should stop whingeing and start thinking long termJenny Davey

JUST a week ago, Mike Ashley was basking in sizzling sunshine on the beach in Marbella, knocking back lagers and lime. He mingled with 200 guests at a party to celebrate the 40th birthday of Gadget shop founder Chris Gorman, then headed back to Britain on Sunday night.

 

But when the billionaire sportswear tycoon touched down at Luton airport, he didn’t expect that only 36 hours later he would be facing heat of a very different kind.

 

His company, Sports Direct, owner of the Lillywhites store in London’s Piccadilly and brands such as Dunlop, Slazenger, Kangol and Lonsdale, issued a profit warning last Tuesday that wiped 22% off its stock-market value in a day. The shares have more than halved in value since the firm floated in February and Ashley and his board have disappointed analysts with their reluctance to engage with the City.

 

Investors who backed the £2.2 billion flotation only five months ago have started baying for blood. Ashley received a mauling in the following day’s newspapers.

 

Related Links

Sports retailer Ashley says City is full of ‘cry babies’

On Wednesday evening, as he sat in the bar of the Four Seasons hotel on London’s Park Lane dressed in a casual shirt and ripped jeans, he was more determined than ever to rebuild his reputation and redouble efforts to turn Sports Direct into the world’s biggest and most profitable sports retailer.

 

“I’ve got balls of steel,” said Ashley. “Some investors have been great and have been very supportive. But some of these City people act like a bunch of cry babies. I’m not giving in. I think the shareholders will divide into two distinct camps. I want a loyal band of followers – long-term shareholders who aren’t on the phone every five minutes just because there’s a share-price movement up or down. Sports Direct should come with a government health warning – this stock is not for the fainthearted.”

 

It has taken Ashley more than two decades to build Sports Direct, so he finds the City’s short-term outlook dispiriting.

 

“I am building a long-term business,” he said. “I can’t spend all my time worrying if the share price goes up and down. It may drop to 80p, but over three years I am betting it will be nearer 800p. I have built the company over 25 years and I am planning the next 25 years. But all anyone wants to talk to me about is what happened in June.”

 

The criticism has come thick and fast over the past few days. It would be easy to forget that Sports Direct’s 2007 numbers were in line with City forecasts and the business delivered a 31.8% increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to £191m for the year to the end of April.

 

Instead analysts focused on the failure to release like-for-like trading numbers. Ashley insists like-for-like sale figures make no sense in sports retailing.

 

“Every other year there is a big football tournament, so you are always comparing a tournament year with a nontournament year. We have always said that we wouldn’t give the figures, but then people turn around and act surprised when we don’t.”

 

His unconventional style has come under fire, notably after it emerged that Ashley settled a row over fees by playing a game of spoof, the coin guessing game, with Simon Mackenzie-Smith, head of UK investment banking at Merrill Lynch.

 

“What do I regret about it? I should have said ‘three’,” Ashley quips. (Ashley guessed two and lost the game.)

 

Ashley, whose favourite song is Wild Boys by Duran Duran, courted further controversy by personally amassing a 3.14% stake in Adidas just weeks after the Sports Direct float. He admits he made a mistake but insists he subsequently offered the stake to the company at cost price but the deal was blocked by the board.

 

“It was showing a €50m (£34m) paper profit. I even guaranteed to take it back at the price paid if it fell in value,” he said. “Not taking it was the worst decision, in my opinion, in 25 years of the company.”

 

Then, at the end of last week Sports Direct splashed out £48m of company money to buy a 1% stake in Adidas, one of Sports Direct’s biggest suppliers – a move that provoked further howls in the City.

 

Another controversial deal has been Ashley’s personal acquisition of Newcastle United Football Club. Where Ashley does show contrition is over the poor communication with the City. Only weeks after the float he sacked his public-relations adviser, Tulchan. He then fell out with David Richardson, his nonexecutive chairman, who quit in frustration at the way Ashley regularly flouted corporate-govern-ance guidelines.

 

He regrets certain parts of Sports Direct’s stock-market debut – most notably not having an investor-relations executive in place before the float.

 

He is set to hire one soon and find a full-time chairman to help guide the business through its ambitious expansion plans.

 

Even though the company has halved in value, Ashley said he had no plans to take it private.

 

“The float has actually put Sports Direct back in some ways, but I see it as two paces forward and one pace back.

 

“The current share price is pathetic. I can’t think of many safer long-term investments at this price. What annoys me the most is that some people are saying they didn’t get what they bargained for. In my opinion they got exactly what it said on the tin.”

 

THE STORY of Ashley’s rise is an extraordinary one. He was only 16 years old when his parents, Keith and Barbara, mortgaged their bungalow and gave him £10,000 to buy the lease and stock of a sports store in Maidenhead, Berkshire, which he renamed Mike Ashley Sports.

 

His father was a production manager at Young’s Seafoods and his mum was a secretary, but this tightly-knit family put their backs into making the shop a success. Ashley’s dad did the books at the weekend and his mum often helped out in store.

 

There remains a family involvement – Ashley’s elder brother John is the Sports Direct IT manager. “He’s very academic – he’s an IT genius, genuinely. He’s like super-bright – the opposite of me. I call him Albert, after Einstein, because he is so brainy. I’m streetwise – he’s not streetwise – we complement each other,” said Ashley.

 

Bob Mellors, the finance director, nicknamed the Captain, has also been with Ashley since the start. The company’s board is a close-knit team and they often socialise with each other. “Some of our best nights out are impromptu – a few beers and then down the kebab shop. We still tell the same old stories, like the time I fell down the fire escape in the Maidenhead store and we still laugh and think it’s funny.”

 

Ashley was born in Walsall, but grew up in Burnham, near Slough. Never very academic, he left school with only one O-level, a C in economics and public affairs. He is not even sure if that is correct – maybe he got the C in the mock exam, he laughs.

 

One thing he did excel at was squash. He became a county coach but that ended when he began working at the sports shop full-time.

 

With the help of his parents, who showed unstinting support for their youngest son, he helped to build the store into Britain’s biggest sportswear retailer. By entrepreneurial flair and determination, he built a business with sales of more than £1 billion.

 

Ashley, nicknamed the Young Emperor by billionaire retail magnate Sir Philip Green, transformed sports retailing, buying brands such as Donnay, Lonsdale, Slazenger and Karrimor, and turning them, in effect, into his chain’s own labels. He has also bought up rival firms, including Hargreaves and Gilesports.

 

Sales and profits rose in a scarcely faltering upward trajectory. The success culminated in Sports Direct’s £2.2 billion flotation at the end of February.

 

Ashley has built a giant distribution centre in the unlikely outpost of Shirebrook, a former Derbyshire pit village.

 

Using his muscle as the biggest sportswear retailer in Britain, Ashley sources his stock cheaply direct from the Far East. He uses those cost savings to slash the prices of big brands such as Adidas or Nike. Once the customers are instore, the hope is that they will also buy some of the brands he owns.

 

Bit by bit, Ashley, who jets around in a company helicopter, is adding new brands – in the past few weeks alone snapping up Field & Trek and Everlast, the American maker of boxing equipment, and entering talks to buy Evans Cycles.

 

“We describe the plan as like a jigsaw or a mosaic. First of all we need to get all the pieces together. And it takes an awful lot of pieces to become the world’s biggest sportswear retailer.

 

“It’s a bit like I was a good squash player in Slough . . . but was I any good nationally? I was not really in their league. It’s a good analogy. Getting to be No 1 in the UK is one thing, but getting to be No 1 in the world is on a totally different scale.”

 

ASHLEY pocketed more than £929m from the Sports Direct float but he retains a 57% stake in the listed company and remains as down-to-earth now as the day he started in business, according to friends.

 

Ashley insists he hasn’t been on a big spending spree since the float. “You have to remember that I wasn’t exactly skint beforehand. You can do exactly the same with £100m or £1 billion. I’m not being funny but you struggle to spend the interest on £1 billion.

 

“I bought myself a red Ferrari for my 40th birthday and I go to fabulous places and I don’t have to worry about what they cost. I go to Sandy Lane or to Mauritius, but I first went there when I was 18.”

 

Family remains critical to Ashley. He has three children – Oliver, 17, Anna, 15, and Matilda, 10 – from his marriage to Linda, which ended in 2003 with a £50m divorce settlement.

 

He has no plans to remarry at the moment. “I can afford many things but getting married isn’t one of them and I’m talking from experience,” he jokes.

 

“My two loves are my business and my kids.” His children spend most weekends at his home in Totteridge, north London, which was once the residence of the record producer Mickie Most.

 

This summer, as every year, he will spend three weeks with the children in California.

 

When Ashley isn’t working or with his family, he is out partying or gambling with his best friend Paul Kemsley, the Tottenham Hotspur director and property entrepreneur. The pair regularly spend nights at the Fifty club in St James’s.

 

“Many of the most successful people I know are gamblers,” he said. “My view is that when you get up on Monday morning you are in the risk business. But there is a fine line between an entrepreneurial investor and a gambler.”

 

“People say: how do you play poker? My answer is ‘all in’ – I’ve always been the same.”

 

By his own admission Ashley is consumed by a “ferocious” desire to succeed. He believes that one day Sports Direct could be a £4 billion company.

 

His blueprint for the future is clear – Sports Direct will need to expand into mainland Europe, take 100% ownership of more brands and acquire large strategic stakes in others. Will the plan for global domination succeed?

 

“My view is that if we fail we will still achieve a lot more than we would have if we didn’t try. I have spent most of my life attempting the impossible and missing, but achieving the nearly impossible.”

 

Crikey...he sounds like a right prick.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Asprilla's foreskin

[Gemmill 36081]

I thought that too tbh. "Loadsamoney" in his 40s.

[Barney 0]

He sounds like a right ruthless/ambitious bastard in that article.

 

Lovely.

[Rob W 0]

Ashley, who jets around in a company helicopter"

 

thats what the guy who used to own Matthew ?harding? did.................

 

until he crashed..................

 

and Ken bates stepped in