Member Info for mt11

They reported PLT in https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/DEBS/final-results-m8d6yt4tnj0soio.html as "Group performance including discontinued operations (including PLT)"

Oceanpassage - isn’t what obvious?

I just don’t see that. If the board are truly bad actors beyond general incompetence then Frasers can make a case to have them removed. Have Frasers done anything else in regards to Tim Morris? Why not?

Why haven’t Frasers published this better finance deal in full?

I find it extremely odd that Frasers keep spending all this money for an asset and then refuse to make an offer.

The case went nowhere so they didn't do anything illegal.

My point is simple here, he spent around £150m building a stake in Debenhams previously which he lost because he didn't make a bid and Boohoo did. Now he's spent circa £100m more, so he is at £250m with no guarantee he will get Debenhams.

Why not just make an offer for the whole group then carve it up as he sees fit whilst keeping Debenhams as he wants to?

His legal battle against Geoff Rowley went nowhere.

There's a concise timeline of Mike Ashley's attempts to acquire Debenhams on https://www.theindustry.fashion/timeline-mike-ashleys-nine-year-campaign-to-take-control-of-debenhams/

I went back and looked into it, Mike Ashley was claiming he was not given the same information as JD Sports and other bidders. That didn't stop him making a bid. He got very annoyed when Boohoo acquired the Debemhams brand a couple of months later. He was always allowed to bid.

He could have made a sensible bid and taken the whole business back then. Even now he can if he wants to...

Derrikk - he can buy Boohoo Group. All he has to do is nudge himself over the 30%. Then make a sensible offer. With Boohoo at ~12p, that can be something like 36p a share, or even more. Remember he only needs to buy 70% of the company as he already owns 30%. He doesn't even have to pay cash, he can offer it part cash and part equity in Frasers.

Unless I'm mistaken Mike Ashley (and Frasers Group) have spent around £250m to date trying to get Debenhams, first in Debenhams itself, then through Boohoo Group. He offered to be CEO but each time he's not offered to put his interests in Frasers Group into a blind trust as far as we can tell.

I, for one would like to see Debenhams back on the High Street even if it's through the slightly odd customer service experience SportsDirect was known to provide. Frasers Group have the Retail Space to make it happen, and more importantly they have the knowhow on how to be a successful bricks and mortar retailer.

It begs the question why he doesn't just make a sensible offer and be done with it. Surely it will be cheaper to buy the rest of Boohoo Group then sell off the parts of merge them into his other operations.

He was locked out April 2019 by the lenders, not when Debenhams was sold later in January 2021. When they sold Debenhams Mike Ashley was able to make a bid, and I sort of recall he did but I could be wrong on that. I do however remember Mike Ashley would make all kinds of offers for financing or rights issues that came with conditions like he had to be made CEO. He's running the same playbook he did then expecting different results.

Mike Ashley got outbid. Then regretted it and has since spent a lot more money building a position in Boohoo/Debenhams Group.

Where did you see this?

Debenhams launched Debenhams Pay+, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) in March 2025. I can't find much information other than:

"Since its launch in March, thousands of customers have already adopted Debenhams Pay+, an innovative credit payment option, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Pay+ offers greater flexibility and choice to consumers, and there is significant headroom for further adoption across our customer base. We are also focused on accelerating the roll out of Pay+ onto our other own brands and our third-party partners."

Anyone have any hot or cold take on the viability of Debenhams Pay+?

They bundled the reporting into one RNS. Wonder if that's

A) No dedicated investor relations team

B) Investor relations team member away

C) Slow reporting by McDonald and quick reporting by Goold

In contrast the PDMR Dealing was published the same day.

Ian McDonald has been buying shares in RevB as well for whatever that's worth...

I don't know how you keep up with all the messages on this board. Anyway, if you mentioned me and I missed it, it wasn't intentional.

Good to see director buys. Here's some context:

- Ian McDonald purchased around £40k of shares and gets around £100k a year from Debenhams

- John Goold purchased around £25k of shares and gets around £82k a year from Debenhams

Quite a healthy chunk of their income (larger still after taxes).

Only if they fail run out of money. Don't worry though Dan Finley's going to spend a lot of money appearing at a ecommerce conference.

Ah don't worry, I went to Linkedin. Dan Finley posted that as a comment to a message that says:

Today we can unveil the line up of speakers from some of the world's biggest ecommerce platforms, for ChannelX World 2025, taking place on the 8th of October in London!

If you've not yet got your ticket, it's waiting for you at .

James Salter, Head of UK Seller Services, Amazon

Luke Forshaw, Head of Brand & Marketing for UK, Back Market

Daniel Finley Finley, Group CEO, Debenhams Group

Dmitry Olerinskiy, Digital Strategy Program Director, Decathlon

Nikki Blackie, UK Regulatory Director, eBay UK

Sohail Ashraf, Group Head of Marketplaces, JD Sports Fashion

Jonathan Evans, Regional VP of Mirakl Ads EMEA, Mirakl

Beth Horn, Managing Director UK, Pinterest

Ekow M., VP Retail Media, SECRET SALES

Rachel Levy (Varley), Head of Retail & Lifestyle, Snap Inc.

Alan Small, Senior Business Development & Head of Hobbies & FMCG, Temu

Andrew Newton, Director of International Marketplace Expansion, Walmart

Rob Prevett Mark Pigou Ian Jindal Amanda Whyte Lisa Bennett

Did Dan share the progress or is just excited about the idea of doing so?

That means the share price will drift lower and if the next results are subpar then there'll be another huge slump.

Dan and team could write a book on how to wreck a company.

Forget refuting anything, it's very annoying how bad they are at replying to anything.

Debenhams have lost control of the narrative.

They need a better press/comms team and a investor relations team.

Debenhams make little sense as I said yesterday they repaid a loan nearly half a year before it's maturity date.

If they have/had a cash crunch then might as well hold on to the funds as long as you can.