W ho would be the better chief executive of a severely ailing online retailer? Candidate A isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but he does tend to deliver the goods: his 73%-owned retail business has defied doubters for a couple of decades, has adapted to the digital age and sits in the FTSE 100 index sporting a market value of £4.6bn. Or would you prefer candidate B? This one is yet to be identified because the last bloke only resigned suddenly a week ago .
But she or he would be chosen by a board that has overseen a collapse in the share price of 90% in the past five years, to the point where a former bright star of the UK retailing scene is worth just £375m. Put like that, it’s a no-brainer. You go for Mike Ashley, for it is he, of Frasers Group/Sports Direct fame to be boss of troubled Boohoo.
And, if you were an outside shareholder in Boohoo, you might reflect that it could happen anyway because Ashley backed his unorthodox public application for the job on Thursday with a threat to call a special meeting of Boohoo shareholders, of which Frasers is the largest with a 27% stake. Except there’s a large red flag over Ashley. It’s not that he and Mahmud Kamani, Boohoo’s co-founder and current executive chair, have personal history – Boohoo bagged the Debenhams brand in 2021 when Ashley thought he had it; Frasers grabbed Missguided the following year when Boohoo looked to be favourite.
Rather, it’s that the short-term future of Boohoo may involve a break-up into its.