Formerly Sports Direct International, Frasers Group is the UK’s largest sporting goods retailer. Its total portfolio spans dozens of brands including Evans Cycles, Gieves & Hawkes and Jack Wills. But the name behind these brands is Mike Ashley, who opened the first shop in 1982.

Born in Walsall, in the West Midlands, Ashley left school at 16 with no qualifications. He began his first retail store, a sport and ski shop in Maidenhead, with a £10,000 loan from his family. By the time it floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2007, the group had been valued at £2.1bn.

High business rates and reduced footfall have battered the UK high street, and Ashley has publicly derided the government for its attempt at reform. Yet Frasers Group looks bullish: FY26 revenue rose 8.7 per cent to £5.3bn, driven largely by international growth. Now led by chief executive Michael Murray, the group is still synonymous with director Ashley, who still owns roughly 73% of the group and continues to steer its M&A activity – most recently the acquisition of luxury department store Harvey Nichols in a pre-pack administration deal in August 2026.

For all his commercial success, Ashley stays a divisive figure in public life. His reputation has been formed as much by boardroom battles as by the numbers on Frasers Group’s balance sheet, as a reminder that scale and popularity rarely move as one.