Sportswear and fashion retailer Frasers Group has taken an 18.9 per cent stake in online electricals retailer AO World, the UK's biggest seller of large domestic appliances.
Frasers, majority owned by Mike Ashley, has reportedly purchased the shares previously owned by crisis-hit Odey Asset Management. Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey has resigned from the investment firm he founded following allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.
Frasers confirmed this morning that it had purchased 109.4 million AO shares at 68p, valuing the stake at £75 million.
"Frasers will benefit from AO's valuable know-how in electricals and two-man delivery, helping us to drive growth in our bulk equipment and homeware ranges," said Frasers chief executive Michael Murray, Mr Ashley's son-in-law.
"In turn, AO will have the opportunity to benefit from Frasers' expertise and ecosystem."
Based in Bolton, AO World was founded in 2000 as Appliances Only by John Roberts. The deal makes Frasers the second-largest shareholder in AO World after Camelot Capital Partners, and ahead of Mr Roberts.
Scottish economy slows but employment growth fastest in UK
Growth of Scotland’s private sector economy slowed sharply in May and manufacturing output contracted for the first time since January, but employment growth north of the Border was the fastest in the UK, a survey shows.
The business activity index for Scotland in Royal Bank of Scotland’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) report dropped from a 10-month high of 54.3 in April to 50.7 in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, with the latest reading only slightly above the no-change mark of 50 and thus signalling only modest expansion. Growth was the slowest in the current four-month run of expansion.
Historic Edinburgh firm acquired by Cumbria business
Morham + Brotchie, the Scottish quantity surveying and cost consultancy, has been acquired by a firm in Cumbria.
Edinburgh-based Morham + Brotchie, which can trace its roots back to 1876, has a depth of expertise in traditional building and complex one-off projects, with clients including National Museums of Scotland, Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, Historic Royal Palaces, The Royal Household and National Trust of Scotland.
It has been bought over by family owned A Lamb Associates, which has expanded from its roots in the oil and gas pipeline sector to commercial services across the construction industry.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here