Sports Direct boss and directors drank restaurant out of £3k-a-bottle wine
Sports Direct boss Mike Ash- ley and his board members drank their way through a Mayfair restaurant’s entire supply of £3,000 bottles of wine during a night out, a court heard.
It was claimed the billionaire was pulling out the stops to persuade non-executive directors to back a bonus scheme that could have seen him awarded shares worth up to £64million in his sportswear firm.
Yesterday the High Court heard that the group began their night out drinking at Mr Fogg’s Residence cocktail bar in Mayfair, before they went on to eat in a private room at nearby Benares, a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant.
It was there that Newcastle United owner Mr Ashley allegedly ordered ‘the most expensive red wine available’ – Richebourg, pictured, at about £3,000 per bottle – until supplies were ‘exhausted’. Then he ordered Penfolds Grange at £875 per bottle, it is claimed, before the party went on to the casino Les Ambassadeurs to play roulette.
Mr Ashley, 52, is being sued by former employee Jeffrey Blue for allegedly reneging on a drink-fuelled deal made in a pub in 2013 that he would be paid £15million if the company’s stock market price doubled to £8 a share.
He claims he received just £1million when the target was reached the following year. A few days after the extravagant night out with non-executive directors in February 2014, the bonus scheme which would have given Mr Ashley eight million shares was shelved.
Mr Blue claims that Mr Ashley was ‘outraged’, and after calling the board members ‘hypocrites’ he said: ‘How dare they lecture me about corporate governance when they’re all happy to sit around and get p****d on £3,000 bottles of wine at the company’s expense and then go to a casino, not believing their f****** luck when they wake up the next morning with a £20,000 casino chip in their pocket or purse.’
Mr Ashley currently owns 61.27pc of sports Direct, or 330m shares, worth £969m.
During the hearing, Mr Blue has been revealing details of how the tycoon conducts business, including sleeping under the table at board meetings and heavy drinking during management meetings held in pubs.
Earlier this week he claimed that during a meeting in a pub near the firm’s head office in shirebrook, Derbyshire, Mr Ashley got into a drinking competition with an analyst from investment bank Merrill Lynch, and, after downing 12 pints of lagers with vodka chasers, was cheered by his senior managers when he threw up in a fireplace. Yesterday, in the austere setting of Court 27 of the Rolls Building in London, where the case is being heard, there was only water to sip from a plastic cup and Polo mints to chew for Mr Ashley. Jacketless, with the top buttons of his white shirt undone and spectacles perched on top of his head, he sat listening with his legal team as Mr Blue continued to be cross-examined about the £15million pay deal. Barrister David Cavender QC accused Mr Blue of ‘making up evidence’, arguing: ‘In truth, there was no agreement and Mr Blue could not have thought so at the time.’ Mr Cavender said Mr Ashley ‘fairly’ said he could not recall details of the conversation in the London pub, ‘particularly in the light of the amount of drinking’ but ‘he does recall there was a lot of banter and bravado’. Yesterday the court also heard Mr Blue’s tape recording of a brief meeting with Mr Ashley, when he tried to resolve the matter. Mr Ashley said he would deal with it later. Mr Ashley is expected to give evidence today.