Newcastle’s reclusive Chairman Ashley was born in 1963 and grew up in Burnham, Buckinghamshire. The classic English school-leaver entrepreneur, Ashley started his empire with ski shops in London finding time to be a squash coach along the way.
His empire now includes Sports Direct (which owns the retail chains Sports World, Lillywhites, Gilesports and the Original Shoe Company). But the real cash has come from his purchase of sports brands (the ones you can now find in Sports World) including Donnay, Dunlop Slazenger, Karrimore, Kangol and Lonsdale. He has stakes in Umbro and Adidas as well as Blacks Leisure (which owns Millets and surf brand Mambo) and is thought to hold stakes in his competitors JJB Sports (owned by Wigan chairman Dave Whelan) and JD Sports - if you can’t beat ‘em…
According to the Sunday Times Rich List he is the 25th richest person in Britain worth £1.9billion. In February 2007 he made a whopping £929million in one day when he floated Sports Direct.
Ashley is notoriously reclusive and not much is known about his personal life. A Guardian reporter researching him wrote of his home: ‘The building is hidden by trees, and CCTV cameras keep watch over the locked gates at the entrance to the half-mile drive. Ashley’s neighbours say they never see him. At the nearby pub, nobody has heard of him’. All we do know is that his ex-wife Linda Jerlmyr bagged in the region of £50million when they divorced in 2002.
So it’s surprising that Ashley stepped in the spotlight to become Newcastle owner, a much more public role. His takeover of Newcastle United through holding company St James Holdings Ltd (we see what you did there) started on the 23d May 2007 with the purchase of Sir John Hall’s 41.6% stake for £55m At the time Freddy Shepherd, on a hospital bed with punctured lung, vowed that he would keep his stake in the club. However, a couple of weeks later on the 7th June Shepherd Offshore Services Ltd agreed to sell its 29.8% stake. By the 26th June, Ashley had secured the 90% of the club required to acquire the final 10%.
Ashley proved his credentials as a goody-two-shoes and earned the scorn of his industry rivals when he turned whistleblower regarding the price fixing of football shirts. He was probably just trying to get cheaper shirts for his discount sports retailers.
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