⬅ # 566 John Henry|# 568 Kenneth Dart ➡

# 567 Mike Ashley 

$5.36B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$47.7M (-0.89%)

# 567 Mike Ashley 

$5.36B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$47.7M (-0.89%)
OccupationFounder, Sports Direct
Source of WealthSports Retailing
Age59
ResidenceHertfordshire, United Kingdom
Marital StatusDivorced
EducationDropout, High School
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$5.74B
Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley
United Kingdom
Net worth: $5.36B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Early Life

Michael James Wallace Ashley was born on September 9, 1964 in Walsall, West Midlands, UK and raised in Burnham, Buckinghamshire
Father worked as a manager at a food distribution depot
Attended Burnham Grammar School
Left school at 16 due to injury, worked as a county-level squash coach
Opened first sport and ski shop in Maidenhead at age 18 with a £10,000 loan from family
Expanded chain in London, rebranded as Sports Soccer in late 1990s

Entrepreneurial Ventures

Founded Sports Direct in 1982 at age 18
Took Sports Direct public in 2007, earning $1.8 billion from IPO
Acquired Donnay Sports, Dunlop Slazenger, Karrimor, Kangol, Umbro, Lonsdale, and others
Expanded Sports Direct to over 800 stores by 2019
Rebranded Sports Direct's parent company to Frasers Group in 2019
Purchased retailer Game Digital, made bid to buy The Times
Acquired assets from DW Sports Fitness for up to £44 million
Negotiated to buy The Mall Luton and Overgate Centre for £100 million in 2023

Football Ventures

Bought Newcastle United in 2007, sold to Saudi-backed consortium in 2021 for around $400 million
Faced criticism and protests from fans during ownership
Acquired stake in Rangers International Football Club in 2014, sold entire shareholding in 2017
Bought CBS arena, Coventry City's stadium, in November 2022

Personal Life

Very private about personal life
Married Linda Jerlmyr in 1988, divorced in 2003
Three children: Ollie, Anna (married to Michael Murray), Matilda
Ollie is a DJ and former owner of Radar Radio
Matilda owns Double Take cosmetics company
Reportedly settled divorce with Linda Jerlmyr with assets worth £50 million

How long would it take you to become as rich as Mike Ashley?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.06% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach Mike Ashley's net worth of $5.36B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 48.24% compared to 16.19% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

Enter data in all but one field below, then calculate the missing value

Mike Ashley is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For Mike Ashley, Sports Retailing is the primary source. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey