Mike Ashley pushes Frasers closer to control of Hugo Boss after fresh stake increase

Frasers Group has taken another substantial step toward greater influence at Hugo Boss, lifting its holding in the German fashion company to 48% after more shareholders accepted Mike Ashley’s offer. The move leaves the retailer only a small distance from outright control and extends a summer spending drive that has already included the purchase of Harvey Nichols.

The latest development, first reported by The Guardian Business, shows how Ashley’s Frasers Group is continuing to build a wider luxury fashion footprint even as it deepens its position in one of Europe’s best-known menswear brands. Frasers said the rise in its stake came after 17.6% of shareholders accepted Ashley’s bid, which valued shares at €38 each. That price represented only a 4% premium to Hugo Boss’s share price when the offer was made.

Frasers edges nearer to control

The new holding means Frasers is now just short of taking full control of Hugo Boss. In June, the company made a takeover offer worth nearly €2bn, or £1.73bn, but the German group’s board dismissed the proposal as inadequate and told shareholders not to accept it. Even so, enough investors have now backed the bid to push Frasers to 48%, a level that puts Ashley’s business in a stronger position to shape the company’s direction.

Market analyst Axel Rudolph of IG described the move as “another major step towards gaining control” of Hugo Boss. He added that the new shareholding leaves Frasers “firmly in the driving seat as it looks to increase its influence”. The language reflects the growing significance of a stake that has moved well beyond a passive investment and now carries clear strategic weight.

The offer, the rejection and the maths behind the move

The offer that helped drive the stake higher was made at €38 a share. According to the source report, it drew acceptance from 17.6% of shareholders and was only modestly priced above the market at the time, with a premium of 4%. That combination of a relatively small premium and a rejected board recommendation makes the outcome notable: Frasers was able to secure a near-controlling position without winning formal support from Hugo Boss’s leadership.

Frasers has owned stock in the German group since June 2020 and, over time, has taken on a more interventionist role. It has also been a stockist of Hugo Boss products in its stores for years, so the relationship between the two companies has long gone beyond a simple investor-company link. The latest stake increase suggests that Ashley’s interest in Hugo Boss remains active and persistent rather than opportunistic.

The move comes after Frasers bought Harvey Nichols out of administration last week in a deal reported at £40m. The upmarket department store chain has 13 branches and 1,200 employees, and had warned that it could run out of money without new funding. Taken together, the Harvey Nichols deal and the Hugo Boss stake increase show how Frasers is broadening its reach in premium retail while also concentrating ownership in brands it already knows well.

Why Hugo Boss matters to Frasers

Hugo Boss has become an important target because it fits Frasers’ wider interest in luxury and premium fashion. The German company has been facing weaker sales in women’s clothing and softer demand in China, an important market for the business. Those pressures have made it vulnerable to shareholder activism and made its direction more open to outside pressure than it might otherwise have been.

For Ashley, the stake increase is part of a broader fashion-led build-out. He has already expanded through Flannels and acquired a large holding in Mulberry. More recently, he also became Burberry’s fifth-largest shareholder after taking a 4.2% stake last month, a position valued at about £160m. Burberry, a 170-year-old trenchcoat maker, has also been under pressure from a global slowdown in demand for luxury goods and said last year that it would cut 1,700 jobs after posting a £66m loss.

That pattern suggests Ashley is assembling a cluster of retail and luxury brands rather than making isolated bets. If Frasers were eventually to gain control of Hugo Boss, the brand would sit alongside the group’s existing businesses, including Frasers department stores, formerly House of Fraser, Sports Direct and Evans Cycles.

What comes next for Ashley’s retail campaign

Ashley’s influence still rests on a much larger home base. He holds 73% of Frasers, the company he built from a single sports shop in Maidenhead, Berkshire, opened in 1982 with £10,000 from his parents. He stepped down from the board in 2022, but remains the dominant shareholder and central figure behind the group’s expansion strategy.

The retail entrepreneur’s wealth rose by £317m to £3.44bn last year, according to the Sunday Times rich list. That financial capacity has helped fund a series of moves across the sector, including a bid this summer for Australian footwear business Accent Group.

There is no sign in the source report that Frasers has abandoned its ambitions at Hugo Boss. On the contrary, the new 48% holding suggests the opposite: Ashley is continuing to press forward, with the German fashion house now sitting near the centre of his expanding luxury retail portfolio. Hugo Boss chair Stephan Sturm struck a conciliatory note, saying the company appreciated Frasers Group’s “continued long-term commitment” and looked forward to maintaining a constructive relationship with its single largest shareholder.