How to Make a Fortune Drinking, Gambling and Napping
- Testimony describes meetings at pubs, drinking contests
- Ashley accused of failing to pay promised bonus to ex-banker
Sports clothing displayed for sale inside a Sports Direct International Plc store in London, U.K.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
In a corporate world where executive suites are filled with trim, marathon-running, salad-eating, MBA-educated leaders, Mike Ashley stands out—by stature, by behavior, and by the self-deprecating way he describes the crasser episodes of his lavish life atop Sports Direct Plc, the U.K. retailer he founded and made a fixture of shopping streets.
That’s the takeaway from days of court hearings that transfixed the U.K. public, with newspapers eagerly writing up every twist of the outlandish anecdotes that spilled forth from Ashley and his former employee, Jeffrey Blue. The ex-banker alleges that Ashley promised him 15 million pounds ($19.5 million) to double the company’s share price during a drinking session at a pub. A judge rejected the claim on Wednesday, saying “no reasonable person would have thought the offer to pay Mr. Blue was serious.”