The names Agent Provocateur and Mike Ashley are not two one normally expects to see in the same sentence.
Well, not unless you have some very weird dreams.
Agent Provocateur, in case you did not know (or after affecting ignorance), is the sexy underwear firm that recently went belly-up.
Let me rephrase that.
It went into administration.
Mike Ashley is the rotund chap who is the boss of cheap and cheerless sportswear tat shifter Sports Direct International PLC (LON:SPD).
He's also now the chap who owns a stake in Agent Provocateur after private equity group 3i, according to the lingerie firm's founder Joe Corré, ran it into the ground.
'At every stage 3i has excelled in its incompetence and neglected its duty to shareholders,” said Corre, getting his knickers in a twist.
3i takes a contrary view, pointing out it invested £4mln to support the team's restructuring plan.
It also said the brand spread itself too thin, which some of us thought was kind of the point of lingerie.
Having given 3i a dressing down Corré did the same to Ashley, calling the sale “a disgrace to British business”.
He predicted that Ashley and 3i would “face a phenomenal swath of litigation actions” over the deal.
The company was bought in a “pre-pack administration” deal, the controversial arrangement where a struggling business can slough off its debts overnight.
The buyer was Four Marketing, in which Sports Direct has a 25% stake.
They say a picture paints a thousand words – I don't necessarily agree, as I have never seen a photo as concisely descriptive as the phrase “a picture paints a thousand words” - but in this case I think I will have to agree that this tweet from @WCBoggs sums up the story better than I could possibly hope to.
Sports Direct buys Agent Provocateur pic.twitter.com/XBbULK8VTs
— WCBoggs (@WCBoggs) March 2, 2017
On the subject of high profile, massively well-remunerated company bosses, shy and retiring Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and boss of marketing giant WPP PLC (LON:WPP) has no doubt been doing the rounds of the TV studios extolling another record year for his company.
Say what you like about him – most people tend to focus on his height and his pay packet – but he has built a monster of a company, and the results statements are always worth perusing to get his thoughts on macroeconomic and industry trends.
Plus he managed to get the phrase “discombobulating forces” into the company statement, which warns a plus mark in my book, even if LibreOffice Writer's spell-checker does not appear to recognise the word.
“In addition, if you are running a legacy business, you are faced with three simultaneous discombobulating forces - technological disruption from disintermediators, those like Uber or Airbnb in the transportation and hospitality industries; the zero-based budgeting techniques of companies like 3G Capital, Reckitt Benckiser and Coty in consumer package goods and Valeant and Endo in the pharmaceutical industries (although their models have become somewhat discredited); and, finally, the attentions of activist investors such as Nelson Peltz, Bill Ackman or Dan Loeb.”
He also gives a nod to American football, which is either an acknowledgement that the shares are as closely followed in the USA as they are in the UK, or a sign of how much US sporting terminology has permeated British English.
Apologies if that comment comes from left field – whatever that means – but here is an example.
“Given this macro-economic background, it is not surprising that clients are generally grinding it out in a highly competitive ground game, rarely resorting to a passing game or Hail Marys,” WPP's statement said.
Sorrell may be a man of catholic sporting interests but the Hail Marys he is referring to is the NFL equivalent of football's speculative last minute shot from the halfway line.
In the next trading statement I'd like to see him fit the word “confuzzled” in there, and perhaps a reference to a goalkeeper scoring a last minute header to win a cup tie.
WPP’s slide on all the macro/micro events affecting the ad industry right now pic.twitter.com/ADPLIfCIe9
— Lara O'Reilly (@larakiara) March 3, 2017
On to the London Stock Exchange Group PLC (LON:LSE), which according to the BBC is working hard on a merger with Deutsche Boerse.
Indeed, and I am “working hard” on that book of discursive analysis of why tall bosses are never accused of having a Goliath complex.
I digress.
The official view seems to be that the LSE is hoping for the best but preparing for the worst in terms of receiving clearance for the its proposed merger (i.e. takeover by) Deutsche Boerse.
LSE boss Xavier Rolet did not sound too optimistic when he said: “It looks like my retirement has been postponed.”
Some commentators in the press do not seem too upset about that.
London Stock Exchange chaos proves bankers are best at screwing it up, writes @SimonEngStand https://t.co/1NYLWjTC5i pic.twitter.com/hK0qrpbPHV
— Standard City (@standardcity) February 28, 2017