Frasers Group ups Asos stake to nearly 20 percent

Fashion and retail giant Frasers Group has once again increased its stake in e-commerce retailer Asos, upping its holding of the company to 20 percent.

This comes just weeks after Mike Ashley’s group had made a similarly significant step up for the firm, recently taking its stake from 10.5 percent to 16.8 percent.

Frasers has been quietly upping its holding in Asos amid the retailer’s continuing drop in share price, triggered largely by its lacklustre trading performance.

In its most recent financial update for the three months to May 31, sales fell 11 percent to 859.9 million pounds.

This came despite the company finally swinging to profit in the same period, with adjusted earnings before interest and tax up more than 20 million pounds YoY.

Asos has been attempting to undergo a business transformation over the past year, which has seen it at the centre of a series of media reports, speculating everything from credit insurer slashes to a potential takeover offer.

It is one of the many struggling companies that Frasers has expressed an interest in, with the group having previously acquired the likes of Missguided, Studio Retail and I Saw It First, rescuing each of them from their own financial woes.