U.K. billionaire Mike Ashley admitted for the first time that he helped bring down his long-term rival and former JD Sports chair Peter Cowgill.
In a rare interview with the Financial Times, Ashley said that he was not “hiding from the fact” that he wanted to topple Cowgill.
“He shouldn’t have been in the car park and maybe I shouldn’t have been in the bushes,” said Ashley, who later clarified that it was actually associates in his employ who recorded the video. “No one is perfect,” he added.
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Ashley still believes that Cowgill had it coming. “He knew what I was going to do: so then why did he do it?”
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According to the Financial times, Cowgill was covertly filmed in 2021 in the front seat of a black Mercedes talking to Footasylum chief executive Barry Bown. JD was at that time in the process of acquiring Footasylum, meaning the companies were barred from sharing commercially sensitive information.
The explosive footage, which was leaked to The Sunday Times, prompted a regulatory investigation which ultimately led to Cowgill being ousted as executive chair of JD, the report said.
“God, Peter acted with so much risk. Because he was so determined to win,” said Ashley told the Financial Times. “Peter is exceptionally good. He was the biggest and best competition by a country mile … JD Sports would have struggled in this market [regardless] but he would have done a better job.”
Ashley’s the owner of U.K. retailer Sports Direct, which he founded in 1982. He later acquired House of Fraser in August 2018 after it entered administration, the U.K. equivalent of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding in the U.S. Ashley subsequently renamed the combined entity Frasers Group.
In March, a stock-exchange filing showed that Frasers has taken a 5.77 percent stake in the German sportswear brand. That stake, under Ashley’s name, will make the billionaire investor Puma’s second largest stakeholder after Anta Sports. (The Anta Sports deal is expected to close later this year.)
Anta, China’s biggest sportswear brand, bought the 29 percent stake owned by Artemis for 1.5 billion euros this past January. Artemis is the investment arm of French luxury firm Kering Group.