Sports Direct buys Jack Wills out of administration for £12.8m
Written by News on 05/08/2019
Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct business has bought Jack Wills for £12.8m, after the troubled ‘preppy’ fashion chain went into administration on Monday.
The high street giant has acquired all of Jack Wills’ assets and 100 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland, in a so-called pre-pack administration deal.
Will Wright, partner at KPMG and joint administrator said: “Jack Wills has a strong brand and proud British heritage, so it is pleasing to have been able to secure this agreement with Sports Direct.”
Suzanne Harlow, Jack Wills chief executive said: “For the past year, we have been focused on improving the Jack Wills proposition and the group’s financial performance.
“Despite significant progress, the challenging trading environment led us to conclude that the company’s long-term future would be best served as part of a larger group and Sports Direct will enable us to do this.”
Confirmation of Jack Wills’ sale to Sports Direct comes a day after Sky News reported that owner Mike Ashley had become the preferred bidder for the fashion group which has been seeking a buyer for the last month.
Sky News revealed on Friday that Sports Direct and Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, headed by rival billionaire Philip Day, were locked in a two-way fight to buy Jack Wills.
In the last 12 months, Mr Ashley has also engineered takeovers of Evans Cycles and Sofa.com.
But his attempts to acquire the department store chain Debenhams, music vendor HMV and the collapsed cafe chain Patisserie Valerie were unsuccessful.
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(c) Sky News 2019: Sports Direct buys Jack Wills out of administration for £12.8m
