Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has filed a possible £83m offer to buy the luxury brand Mulberry as it expressed concerns about the future of the British handbag maker.
Frasers – the owner of Sports Direct, Evans Cycles, the House of Fraser department store, luxury streetwear chain Flannels and multiple brands from Slazenger to Jack Wills – already owns a 37% stake.
It said it was making an offer for the rest of Mulberry after the luxury brand announced an emergency £10.75m placing of shares to prop up the balance sheet late on Friday.
Mulberry had said it needed to raise cash after it fell to a £34m pre-tax loss in the year to the end of March, from a £13m profit a year before, after sales fell by 4% to £153m. It added that sales were down by 18% for the 25 weeks since the period end.
In a statement issued on Monday, Frasers said it would “not accept another Debenhams situation where a perfectly viable business is run into administration”. The statement refers to collapse of the department store in 2019, wiping out shareholders including Ashley’s retail group which had ploughed £150m into the business including building up a near-30% stake.
The statement said the group “was not aware of the [planned cash raising by Mulberry] until immediately prior to its announcement” and would have been willing to underwrite it on better terms than those announced.
Mulberry’s share price, which stood at 125p on Friday before the announcement, recovered to 120p from 100p on Monday. Ashley’s offer is 130p a share.
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