IlluMyFi

The online retailer needs a shake-up – but the Sports Direct supremo is far from an unconflicted party

Boohoo wins influential adviser’s support in battle with Mike Ashley

Make-your-mind-up-time approaches for Boohoo’s shareholders in the great showdown with Mike Ashley. The Sports Direct maestro wants a seat on the Boohoo board for him and a mate, to go with the 27% shareholding his Frasers Group holds in the struggling online retailer. The vote is on 20 December and, naturally, is being preceded by an entertaining round of back-and-forth insults.

This is a scrap one wishes it was possible for both sides to lose. Boohoo, with a share price down 90% in five years, certainly deserves a shake-up that a boardroom bruiser in the Ashley style might deliver. The environment for online clothing pioneers has been turned upside down by the arrival of Shein and others, but Boohoo has added mistakes all of its own. In short, the company seems to have bought a heap of brands and labels, including Debenhams, Oasis, Warehouse, Karen Millen and Burton, without having a decent plan to manage the sprawl.

Sentiment

-0.11

Bearish/Bullish

26.12.24 10:00

by theguardian.com

So Gloucester services is the best in Britain? Let a true pitstop connoisseur be...

With its herb garden, deli counter and ‘living roof’, the M5 stop-off is definitely swish. But I’m a Monster Munch man at heart

If you know me, you’ll know there is nothing I like better than a good old-fashioned service station. Where else can you jump out of the car for an overpriced Burger King, a go on a driving arcade game from 1993 and – most importantly – a wee? Service stations are mini utopias, housing everything that a human being needs for basic survival. Come the apocalypse, you’ll find me happily holed up in my nearest Moto.

Rightmove recently published a list of the happiest places to live in Great Britain, and I suppose I can see why that might be of interest. But it was a survey of the UK’s service stations by the consumer group Which? that really caught my eye, partly for its ludicrous claim that “no one visits a motorway service station for fun”. What nonsense. Although with all the hassles of Christmas travel, I suppose some people may fail to find them quite so entertaining. In any case, ranking service stations is old news: my friends and I have been doing so for years.

Rich Pelley is a freelance writer

United States of America