Mike Ashley raises Mulberry bid to £111m
Slowdown: Mulberry has suffered a slump in sales and profits
Mike Ashley last night raised his bid for Mulberry from £83m to £111m.
In its second attempt to buy the troubled fashion label, Ashley’s firm Frasers Group bumped up its offer to 150p per share.
The move came hours after Frasers, which is controlled by the entrepreneur and owns Sports Direct and House of Fraser, bought £10m of shares in online platform The Hut Group (THG).
That was part of a £95.4m fundraising by THG as it seeks to spin off its technology division Ingenuity.
Last week, Mulberry rejected the initial £83m bid from Frasers after talks with its majority shareholder, Singapore billionaire Ong Beng Seng, who it said has ‘no interest’ in backing the takeover.
Frasers owns 37 per cent of the struggling British fashion house and the Ong family’s Challice group has a 56 per cent controlling stake.
Mulberry has suffered a slump in sales and profits amid a slowdown in the luxury market, leading it to oust its boss in a big shake-up.
But Fraser’s last night insisted ‘there is no current commercial plan’ at Mulberry.
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