Ashley’s £100m big bonus plan
BUT DISBELIEF AT £10 SHARE TARGET
WORKERS at the group which owns Sports Direct could – at a push – share a £100million bonus bonanza.
Shareholders in billionaire Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of the employee reward scheme.
About 1000 staff could bag share awards worth at least £50,000 each.
And a lucky 10 top performers could potentially get £1million each.
The plan also offers cash bonuses of up to four weeks’ salary for workers with the group for at least four years.
However, the potentially life-changing sums are far from a done deal.
Frasers’ share price needs to hit £10 for 30 consecutive days in the next four years for the payouts to be triggered.
The highest it has reached was £9.22 in 2014 and closed yesterday at £3.61.
Chris Wootton, Frasers’ chief finance officer, told shareholders at yesterday’s AGM the £10 target was “challenging but achievable”. But City analysts expressed scepticism. Jonathan Pritchard, a retail expert at Peel Hunt, said: “I’m all ears as to the road map of how to get to £10.”
Ashley kept quiet during the 25-minute meeting at the company’s headquarters in Shirebrook, Derbyshire.
It followed a tumultuous summer which saw the retail giant hit by enforced store closures and scorn after appeals were made to the Government that Sports Direct outlets should remain open with “essential status” during the coronavirus lockdown.
Wootton also yesterday repeated the company’s warning that it could shut some House of Fraser stores if the Government does not change the business rates system.