Sports Direct seeks to sell HQ to Asian buyer

‘Proceeds from the sale will towards the working capital of the company and its group operations’

SPORTS DIRECT is in advanced talks to strike a £120m sale and leaseback of its Shirebrook headquarters and warehouse with a mysterious Asian buyer.

The Mike Ashley-controlled retailer said that it would take a 15-year lease on the warehouse and would use the proceeds from the sale to KWAA Logix Sportivo “towards the working capital of the company and its group operations”. Sports Direct said that it would continue to use the property as a warehouse, office and shop.

Mr Ashley is said to be obsessed with property deals and recently paid more than £100m to buy the freehold on Oxford Street for his upmarket Flannels brand. He also paid £95m for the freehold of Glasgow’s House of Fraser store, which he plans to turn into the “Harrods of the North”.

Mr Ashley is understood to be planning to spend millions of pounds turning a clutch of House of Fraser stores into upmarket “Frasers”. He is also understood to be working on buying some Debenhams stores from landlords after the department store brokered rent cuts through a company voluntary arrangement.

Sale and leaseback deals have garnered negative publicity after private equity firms used them to load retailers with leverage and extract hefty dividends. However, the number of such deals have risen by a third over the past year, according to Savills, as companies need to rationalise their estate and release capital that they can invest.