Frasers Group upbeat on future of high street as delayed results released
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has published its delayed results – the second time in two years sales figures have failed to arrive on time – and painted a bullish picture for the future of the high street at a time when others are fleeing.
Frasers, which includes House of Fraser, Sports Direct and Evans, among others, said the emptying of the high street and shopping centres could prove lucrative for the firm, with more space available to expand.
The company also plans to invest “in excess” of £100 million on upgrading its digital platforms and pushing its designer label business Flannels.
Bosses are keen to push their “elevation” strategy to improve stores and win over more customers with premium products – and away from previous criticisms of crowdedstoresandneverendingdiscount events.
This includes building strong relationships with Adidas and Nike, which spent much of the past decade shifting away from Ashley and his preferred style of aggressive business. They also called for the UK government to increase corporation tax in the UK by 1 per cent to fund the NHS, adding “on the proviso the full 1 per cent goes directly to the NHS”.
Chairman David Daly said: “The Covid-19 impact has created uncertainty and we consider that it will be some time before the country and indeed the world recovers.
However, Frasers Group itself has always taken a long-term approach to its strategy and this has helped us, and will continue to help us, through these unprecedented times. We believe our business is strong as is our balance sheet.”
In its stores, Frasers said it had seen strong growth in its “premium lifestyle” brands but there was also growth in its UK sports retail division.