Mike Ashley survives Sports Direct vote

But then again, no company is like Sports Direct. Even a note from respected analyst Tony Shiret, where he said “we expect that investors may react adversely to the lack of detail”, is unlikely to ruffle Mike Ashley’s feathers as his helicopter touches down for Wednesday’s annual general meeting.

Sports Direct declined to comment on the situation when contacted by just-style today.

Sports Direct global plc (LON:SPD), the UK’s leading sports retailer, announced today its Trading Update relating to the period from 27 April 2015 to 8 September 2015.

This is not the first time Royal London, which is said to own less than 1% of the company’s shares, has voted against the re-election of the non-executive directors at Sports Direct, after it did so past year. In March, the Institute of Directors, an influential organisation made up of 34,500 British businesses, slammed Ashley’s Sports Direct for being “dysfunctional.”

One institutional investor, Royal London Asset Management, earlier called for the resignation of Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley citing anger on his failure to attend four board meetings.

The worker’s union criticised the organisation for its allegedly inhumane way of treating employees, saying: “It’s a ‘workhouse, NOT a workplace!”.

A representative of Hargreaves Lansdown said Sports Direct’s reputation as an employer was “atrocious” and asked Hellawell why he had not resigned. These Victorian era conditions combined with Sports Direct’s rampant use of zero hours contracts across its stores should have no place on the high streets of 21st Century Britain.

A further 75% of staff across its United Kingdom stores are also on zero-hours contracts, with Sports Direct accounting for a fifth of all such contracts in the retail sector, according to Unite.

“We continue to focus on the roll-out of large format city centre stores and the expansion of our National Distribution Centre in Shirebrook”.

The group is targeting underlying earnings of £420m for the full-year.

There is also concern among some investors about the company’s bonus scheme for senior staff, which excludes workers on zero-hours contracts, amid lower profit targets.