Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group makes £83m offer for handbag maker Mulberry

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 stores, the luxury streetwear chain Flannels and multiple brands from Slazenger to Jack Wills – already owns a 37% stake in Mulberry.

It said it was making an offer for the rest of the company 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 ended.

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 the collapse of the department store in 2019, wiping out shareholders such as Ashley’s retail group, which had ploughed £150m into the business, including building up a near-30% stake.

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