‘A more acceptable Mike Ashley’: Sports Direct’s owner gets a new boss

theguardian.com:

Dressed in a T-shirt and casual sweater with a tan and slicked back hair, Michael Murray is joking with the camera crew as he films a clip for social media surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass walls in the London headquarters of Frasers Group.

As the 32-year-old former nightclub promoter takes the reins at the retail business that owns Sports Direct, House of Fraser and Flannels this week, there could not be a clearer indication of the change of image at the top of the company founded by Murray’s father-in-law to be, Mike Ashley.

Ashley, Frasers’ controlling shareholder who will remain an executive director on the board, has a difficult relationship with the media, rarely giving interviews or holding press conferences.

Before floating Sports Direct in 2007, he was so reclusive that the only photograph of him available was from the 1970s, when he was a county squash coach. Since then, Ashley has appeared in front of MPs and fronted annual presentations to analysts and the media, but is clearly uncomfortable in the spotlight and runs Frasers as a quasi private company under the thumb of his now 67% stake.

In contrast, Murray posts updates on the business on social media, such as pictures of a meeting with Hugo Boss executives in Germany last month, and gives detailed interviews with the press outlining his thoughts on the business’s strategic direction.

Eschewing the company’s cut-price heritage, Murray spent millions of pounds on a new central London headquarters and flagship for the luxury Flannels chain and funded glossy ads for Sports Direct featuring celebrity athletes, including tennis champ Emma Raducanu and footballer Jack Grealish.

In his latest LinkedIn profile, Murray announces plans to “accelerate the group’s