Mike Ashley has stepped in as acting chief executive of under-fire Sports Direct after the sudden resignation of Dave Forsey.
Ashley said: “I feel like I have lost my right arm, but I do hope to have the opportunity to work with Dave again in the future.”
Sports Direct has been under heavy criticism from politicians over paying warehouse workers less than the minimum wage.
After the criticism, which included a critical report from the firm’s own lawyers Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, Ashley admitted he had taken his “eye off the ball” adding: “I’m going to fix it and I will.”
Forsey, who had refused to take his annual share bonus of around £3.6m, after poor results, resigned yesterday. He had partly blamed the company’s poor results on negative media attention.
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Ashley was appointed chief executive by the board with immediate effect.
Chairman Keith Hellawell said: “I would like to thank Dave for his significant contribution over the last 32 years and during a significant growth and change at the company.
“On behalf of all the people at Sports Direct I wish him well in his future endeavours.”
Sports Direct has also announced plans to put an employee on the board, as well as go on a spending spree of buying vacant property, development land, redevelopment projects and multi-tenanted properties and retail parks.
As of April 24, the company had spent £250m on property and expected that number to rise to more than £3oom.
The company recorded an 8.4% fall in underlying pretax profit in July for last year to £275.2m, but revenue was up 2.5% to £2.9bn.
