Mike Ashley is a man who likes to surprise the City. Last week he did just that when this paper revealed that Frasers Group, his retail empire, had thrown its hat into the ring for the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield.
It wouldn’t be the first acquisition of this sort — the company bought two shopping centres last year, The Mall in Luton and the Overgate centre in Dundee — but Ashley’s latest and biggest punt on retail property will have left investors scratching their heads again about what Frasers’ “end game” might be.
Michael Murray, Ashley’s son-in-law and the chief executive of the retailer, said that shopping centres provided the group with an opportunity to “go in, put Frasers in — in the right
