Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group PLC (LSE:FRAS) has performed the corporate equivalent of musical chairs with its shareholding in ASOS PLC (LSE:ASC), the embattled online clothes retailer.
While it has increased its equity interest in ASOS from 12.7% to 16.4%, Frasers' overall control has dropped to 18.3% from 19.5%. The swing factor is the percentage of the stake held in financial instruments by Frasers.
So the financial instruments element has declined from 6.8% to 1.9% (rounded up to one decimal place).
ASOS stock, down 41% in the past year, was changing hands for 390.8p, up 3.2p on Tuesday.