W hen Mike Ashley stepped down from the board of his retail empire Frasers Group, it always seemed unlikely that the man who had spent the best part of 40 years tormenting his high street rivals would quietly slip away into retirement. And so it proved. On November 12, 2022, a few weeks after Ashley’s departure, Frasers chairman David Daly, sent a letter to Chris Roberts, his counterpart at Mulberry, the luxury handbag maker it part-owned, requesting Ashley be appointed to its board of directors.
Roberts, who has served on Mulberry’s board for 22 years, rejected the request a month later. While Mulberry acknowledged it needed to appoint a new director, it argued that Ashley was not sufficiently independent. Relations between the two companies have only.
