Already, JD was on his way to even greater dominance. In the spring of that year it had acquired Footasylum for 90 million pounds. With 70 stores, the family chain had managed to maintain a niche in the sports market.
Unusually, Cowgill had chosen to proceed with the deal without notifying the CMA in advance. According to documents reviewed by The Telegraph, he said privately that the move was not anti-competitive, but that he had done so after promising a member of Footasylum’s founding family who was seriously ill.
A JD spokesman declined to comment on that conversation, but said: “JD obtained legal and economist advice on the chances of the CMA getting this acquisition through the Phase 1 review and was ultimately happy to proceed.”
Despite comments he made privately, Cowgill has publicly rejected suggestions of personal favors at Footasylum. “I wouldn’t spend £90m on anybody. I couldn’t,” he said in 2020.
After a long battle during which the CMA was forced to investigate the deal and find it anti-competitive twice, this month JD was forced to sell Footasylum. Cowgill’s decision not to seek pre-authorisation meant that it remained in control of the sale process. The final buyer for just £38m, less than half of what JD paid, was Aurelius, a fund that specializes in making distressed companies profitable.
Frasers, a serial buyer of these assets, made an indicative offer of £100m according to documents seen by The Telegraph, but was left out of the process led by Deloitte. In response to an email from Frasers’ advisers asking for confirmation that signing an NDA would allow it to participate in the second round of the auction, the Big Four accountancy firm delivered the bad news.
“Having discussed with JD today, he does not intend to bring any further parties into the process at this time,” he said. Today JD remembers things differently.
“Frasers refused to sign the same NDA that all the other bidders did and therefore never entered the process,” he says. “The CMA was kept up to date at all stages and raised no objection to the process or indeed to the final outcome.”
He dismisses suggestions from Frasers that consumers are being harmed by their increasingly exclusive relationships with big brands. The findings on the Rangers kits, he argues, are irrelevant to a global market.
“It is clear that the CMA does not agree with any of Frasers’ claims in this regard,” says a spokesman. “The premium sportswear segment is a highly competitive global market both in-store and online and it is completely disingenuous to attempt to link this segment to the CMA’s investigation into replica football equipment.”
Cowgill’s relationships have also allowed JD to go global. In 2018, it acquired the American chain Finish Line under Ashley’s nose. Frasers had amassed a 19-unit stake as a bridgehead into the world’s most lucrative market, but lost out to JD, believing the powerful big brands had warned Finish Line against merging with it. There is no evidence to support these suspicions, however.
JD says: “JD’s continued global success is about one thing. A relentless commitment to understanding better than anyone else what their core sports fashion and ‘street’ consumer wants. This allows JD to curate and deliver the product offering appropriate and highly differentiated for its clearly defined target audience.
The battle isn’t over yet, though. Frasers remains in contact with the CMA, which is monitoring the market. JD has appointed a more conventional big business leader in Regis Schultz to impose a new culture. Meanwhile, between trips to Mallorca this summer, Cowgill is still negotiating his exit package with JD and its majority shareholders, the Rubin family. Industry rumors have even linked him to a role with Footasylum.
“It’s standard for exit agreements to contain non-compete clauses,” says JD.