How is Mike Ashley making money?

[Zio Di Roma]

I understand how he makes money from Sports Direct.

But I was in one of his House of Frasers last week and it was EMPTY. It looked like a jumble sale with all the doors locked. I was the only customer I saw and the staff in the cosmetics department were practising a dance routine. I kid you not.

He recently bought Gieves and Hawkes on Savile Row and no one will go there for a bespoke suit now that Ashley owns it. That's assuming that they even DO bespoke now, which I suspect is unlikely.

Is he really making money from his acquisitions, or are there smoke and mirrors in play?

[Zio Di Roma]

So PH is wisdom is that you don't really get it either.

I wonder whether his endgame is something other than successful retail stores. Maybe the land value?

[Zio Di Roma]

globaltraveller said:

£340 million profit says that the model is working.

I’m not particularly snobby, but I think it’s a chav play.

At the bottom of the market you have stack-em-high-sell-em-low in Sports Direct.

In the middle of the market you have the aspirational brands where he squeezes quality and margin, but they retain some cachet for years. I still think of House of Frazer as a slightly posher Debenhams, and he does the same with brands like Agent Provocateur which now show up discounted in House of Frazer. It’ll be decades before people work out that these brands are el-cheapo.

Then you have the high end chav play at Flannels where chavs are happy to spend a weeks wages for a CP Company logo.

He knows his audience and serves them well.

Edited by globaltraveller on Sunday 30th July 11:07

We have a lot of chavs in this country then, who are making him successful. A look around our local high streets supports your theory.