Billionaire Ashley dismisses £15m wage offer as pub banter
MIKE ASHLEY, the billionaire owner of Sports Direct, has no recollection of an alleged deal in which he agreed to pay a banker £15million to double his share price because he had drunk so much, he has admitted.
The alcohol-fuelled and unconventional manner in which the tycoon conducted business has been laid bare in an astonishing High Court battle.
Mr Ashley is being sued by Jeffrey Blue, an investment banker, who claims Mr Ashley reneged on a promise to pay him £15million if he used his expertise to increase Sports Direct’s share price to £8 a share. He says he was only paid £1million. The dispute centres on a conversation held in the Horse and Groom pub in London in 2013.
David Cavender QC, for Mr Ashley, said the 52-year-old entrepreneur, said to be worth £2.2billion and whose assets include ownership of Newcastle United Football Club, “fairly” said he could not recall details of conversations in the Horse & Groom “particularly in the light of the amount of drinking. He does recall ‘that there was a lot of banter and bravado’.” Mr Cavender added: “He does not recall any discussion about whether Mr Blue would be paid a sum of money if the share price reached £8 a share.
“He says if there was ‘it would have been obvious that he was joking’.”
The court has heard that Mr Ashley often did business at a London casino called Fifty St James.
Mr Blue claimed that during one meeting, in a private dining room at Benares restaurant, Mr Ashley ordered the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu: “Richebourg at around £3,000 per bottle.”
He said in his witness statement: “When supplies of this had been exhausted, Mr Ashley continued with the Penfolds Grange (£875 per bottle).
“Following dinner, the party retired to Les Ambassadeurs, a London casino where Mr Ashley and the non-executive directors played at the roulette table.”
The next week, at Sports Direct’s head office in Derbyshire, Mr Ashley is said to have called the non-executive directors hypocrites for pulling him up on corporate governance.
Mr Ashley is expected to give evidence in the case today.