Bonus for billionaire Sports Direct founder

Sports Direct International, the UK’s biggest sporting-goods retailer, said investors approved a multi-million-pound bonus for billionaire founder Mike Ashley, succeeding in passing an award that was blocked twice before.

A proposed bonus plan in which Ashley is eligible to participate was supported by 60.4% of shareholders, the company said yesterday in a statement after its AGM.

Sports Direct has faced a barrage of criticism for its efforts to reward Ashley, who owns a 58% stake yet has never received a salary for his role as deputy chairman. The UK Institute of Directors said that the retailer’s latest plan was “excessively generous” and suggested “weak underlying governance at the company”.

Sports Direct chairman Keith Hellawell said that the company had responded to feedback from shareholders, who in April rejected a bonus package for Ashley that would have given him 8m shares, worth £58m (€73m) at current prices.

The previous proposal didn’t make it as far as a vote.

Ashley, who founded the firm in 1982, has an estimated wealth of about $6.1bn (€4.46bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The executive, who also owns Premier League soccer club Newcastle United, has led an expansion of the retailer to about 400 stores in the UK and about 270 in 19 other European countries.