Sports Direct billionaire launches new discount chain on high street with Kidderminster store
Sports Direct billionaire Mike Ashley is using Kidderminster as a springboard for his latest venture on the high street – a new discount chain to rival Woolworths.
And the new store, MegaValue.com, even sits next to a former Woolworths in Worcester Street, with rival discount chain Poundland on the other side.
No fanfare has accompanied the new venture and the company's online presence is simply a holding page saying the website is 'coming soon'.
But it aims to sell everything from toys, kitchen and home products, electrical, outdoor and DIY goods as well as health and beauty items and arts and crafts materials.
Mr Ashley's top team at his Sports Direct empire are the directors of the new business, which was set up in April. And Mega Value also shares Sports Direct's formal company address at Shirebrook near Mansfield. The directors at Mega Value are David Forsey, who joined Sports Direct in 1984 and has become Mike Ashley's right-hand man, running the business as chief executive since 2007, and Karen Byers, the head of retail at Sports Direct. It also shares a company secretary with Sports Direct, Cameron Olsen, who has been a legal adviser to Mr Ashley's clothing chain for more than a decade.
The store supervisor at the Kidderminster shop in Maxine Wright, who's LinkedIn profile reveals she spent the previous nine years working for Sports Direct as a sales assistant. The Worcester Street store is also to be the venue of one of Mr Ashley's 28-strong chain of Sports Direct Fitness gyms, which already has three branches in Birmingham. The gym, which will sit above the store, charges membership for as little as £5 a month at some branches.
Mega Value has taken over one of the biggest stores in Kidderminster which was occupied by discount firm Hooty's from 2010 until last year. Previously it had been unoccupied for around four years after Littlewoods Index pulled out.
Meanwhile there is speculation in the retail world that Mr Ashley, who also owns Newcastle United, might being the running to buy the Woolworths brand name if it comes up for sale.
No-one from Sports Direct or Mr Ashley's organisation was available to comment.
