Mike Ashley, the owner of the Coventry Building Society Arena, has seen his fortune take a hammering, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
The Sports Direct supremo tops this year’s East Midlands list courtesy of his Shirebrook base, near Mansfield, but the Rich List puts his current fortune at £3.12 billion, down from £3.79 billion last year.
The Sunday Times reports: “Ashley has lost none of his appetite for fashion brands, and has built a sizable stake in Hugo Boss. But his Frasers Group has been hit by Chancellor Rachel Reeve’s national insurance hike and shares have fallen significantly.”
The Coventry Building Society Arena, Coventry City’s home stadium, is owned by Frasers Group, and publication of the Rich List comes as Ashley is being pressured to agree a long-term or even permanent tenancy with the football club owner Doug King.
King insists the club have shown willing by “investing millions” into the stadium, and are pressing ahead with plans for further improvements, including replacing the floodlights and turnstiles.
But City will breach new EFL rules that come into effect in July and be fined if a new long-term licence agreement to play at the Arena is not secured in the coming weeks. Those rules have been introduced as a direct result of City’s historic stadium situation.
“Whilst we do not own the Coventry Building Society Arena, we have still invested millions to enhance all aspects of experience for our fans,” said King recently.
“The new pitch, the CCFC superstore, the safe standing and away end modifications, the refurbishment of the dressing rooms and surrounding areas, and this close season we will be replacing the floodlights and turnstiles for the first time since the Arena was built in 2005.
“We continue to have a strong working relationship with the Arena but can only continue to invest in new capital projects having an assurance regarding our position here through a long-term license agreement or something more permanent.
“Our current license expires in June 2028 which falls foul of new EFL rules set to take effect in July, whereby all clubs who do not own their own ground must have a minimum 10-year rolling license agreement from the 2025/26 season onwards or be subject to escalating club fines.”
Any response from Ashley or Frasers Group on the Arena issue remains unclear, but the Rich List will not make happy reading for the Sports Direct owner.
His inclusion in the rich list comes as this week’s 76-page special edition of the Sunday Times Magazine reveals the largest fall in the billionaire count in the guide’s 37-year history, from a peak of 177 in 2022 to 156.
This year’s list of 350 individuals and families hold combined wealth of £772.8 billion – three per cent down on last year, but still a sum larger than the annual GDP of Switzerland.
Sir Elton John, Lord Lloyd-Webber, Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Euan Blair, Sir Lewis Hamilton and Sir Christopher Nolan all appear in the annual survey. The minimum entry level flatlines at £350 million — another indicator of a subdued year.
Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said: “Our billionaire count is down and the combined wealth of those who feature in our research is falling.
“This year we were also struck by the strength of criticism for Rachel Reeves’s Treasury. We expected the abolition of non-dom status would anger affluent people from overseas, but homegrown young tech entrepreneurs and those running centuries-old family firms are also warning of serious consequences to a range of tax changes unveiled in last October’s budget.”
Discussion about this post