Mike Ashley has appointed his younger daughter as a director at his sprawling retail and property empire.
Matilda Ashley, 27, has been made a director of Mash Holdings, the entity that the billionaire businessman uses to control his stake in Frasers Group and other companies, according to Companies House filings.
Representatives for Mash Holdings and Frasers Group declined to comment when asked for further details.
The move comes after Matilda Ashley recently resigned as a director of Double Take, her beauty business, following reports last year that Frasers had bought the company for £1 without informing shareholders. She launched Double Take in 2015. It owns SportFX, a cosmetics brand that is stocked in Sports Direct.
The company survived the pandemic with the assistance of cash and loans from Mash Holdings, her father’s personal company, which is understood to own the rights to SportFX for clothing, footwear and sports equipment. Ashley had said in 2021 that he would continue to financially back SportFX for the “foreseeable future.”
His daughter’s appointment could raise eyebrows in the City as Ashley, 59, increasingly leans on family links to build his empire. The Sunday Times reported that David Al-Mudallal, her boyfriend who is the chief operating officer of Frasers, had been appointed to its board, making him one of the youngest directors of a FTSE 100 company.
It means that two of the eleven members of Frasers board are in relationships with Ashley’s daughters. Michael Murray, who became chief executive at Frasers in 2022, is married to Anna Ashley, the tycoon’s elder daughter. In the past, Murray’s mother Nicola Murray was engaged by Frasers to “perform design work for the group in relation to some of the group’s sites”. She runs a property design business called Nicola Murray Design.
In 2016, Sports Direct was criticised by its own shareholders and corporate governance experts after it emerged that the sportswear retailer was paying a company owned by Ashley’s brother, John Ashley, to deliver online orders outside the UK. The arrangement with Barlin Delivery had not been disclosed in Sports Direct’s annual report.
Frasers, which was founded by Ashley in 1982, began life as one shop in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The group now owns more than 1,500 stores in 20 countries. It owns a string of high street chains including House of Fraser, Sports Direct, Flannels, Evans Cycles and Jack Wills.
Ashley stepped down from the board in 2022 but still owns 73 per cent of the shares and holds a wide-reaching consultancy role.
Shares in Frasers Group closed up 0.8 per cent, or 7p, to 867p.