Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has snapped up a basket of 15 brands, including former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green and 1980s label Tessuti in a £47.5m cash deal with JD Sports.
JD, which owns Size?, Finish Line in the US and Spain’s Sprinter, as well as its main retail chain, said the sale of “non-essential” brands would allow it to focus on other priorities, particularly “international expansion and digital”. of the group’s leading premium sportswear retail brands.
The deal will put the brand Gallagher founded in 2009 in new hands for the second time in three years after Pretty Green fell into administration in 2019 before being rescued by JD. Other brands included in the sale are shoe brand Nicholas Deakins, casual fashion brand Scotts, Rascal Clothing and the Watch Shop.
The deal, which will result in a one-off £100m non-cash writedown on JD’s brand equity-related accounts, is a bold first move by new chief executive Régis Schultz, who took over in September after the departure of the group’s long-term boss, Peter Cowgill.
Schultz said: “JD is rightly recognized for its laser focus on the customer and we are convinced that the most important opportunities lie in the continued international development of the Group’s global sportswear businesses.”
Ashley’s retail empire has a long history of buying fashion brands to help drive profits in her retail empire. Frasers already owns dozens of brands, including Everlast, Lonsdale, Karrimor, Agent Provocateur and Firetrap, and recently acquired tailoring brand Gieves & Hawkes and online fast fashion specialists Missguided and I Saw it First. She also has large stakes in the listed luxury brands Hugo Boss and Mulberry.
Frasers CFO Chris Wootton said last week that investors should “wait for more deals to happen” and the group was in talks with several potential targets.
However, a deal with JD would have been unlikely under the leadership of Cowgill, who had a long history of rivalry with Sports Direct founder Ashley, who once owned shares in JD.
Cowgill had hinted, for example, that the competition regulator’s blockade of JD’s attempt to buy its smaller rival, Footasylum, had been influenced by the Sports Direct founder.
Cowgill resigned from JD with immediate effect in May, just months after the retailer was fined more than £4m for breaking competition watchdog rules with clandestine meetings aimed at acquiring control.
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However, he has since agreed to advise his new chairman, Andy Higginson, and Schultz for an “expected period” of three years under a golden £5.5m parting deal.
His departure was a major blow to the company, where he oversaw a turnaround after returning as chairman three years after stepping down as chief financial officer in 2001.
Source: news.google.com