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Boohoo shareholders have rejected billionaire sportswear tycoon Mike Ashley’s attempt to join the board of the UK online fast-fashion retailer.
A total of 64 per cent of votes cast went against proposals to give Ashley and his business associate, Mike Lennon, seats on the Boohoo board following a meeting on Friday.
The results come after weeks of barbed exchanges between Ashley’s Frasers Group, which owns about 28 per cent of Boohoo, and the fast-fashion retailer over the leadership and performance of the lossmaking company.
Frasers has complained about “continued chaos” and “value destruction” after a 90 per cent fall in the value of Boohoo’s shares from their June 2020 peak.
Boohoo, in turn, has said that Frasers appeared intent to “destabilise Boohoo and disrupt [the] board’s plans to unlock and maximise shareholder value”.
Separately, investors will vote again in January on whether to oust Mahmud Kamani, Boohoo’s co-founder and executive vice-chair, as director of the group — also at Frasers’ request.
Ahead of the meeting, both camps set up websites setting out their stalls to shareholders. On one side, Ashley’s Boohoodeservesbetter.com, carries the tag line “A simple choice: win with Mr Ashley or lose with Mr Kamani” and lists Ashley’s achievements, such as building Frasers into a £3.5bn company from a single shop in Maidenhead in 1982.
His adversary’s website, Boohooforall.com, states “Value for all shareholders, not just Frasers” and features a glossy video starring chief executive Dan Finley extolling the retailer’s recent turnaround efforts.
This is a developing story . . .
