"Many a man who went to bed well, has found himself dead in the morning when he awakes."
Mike Ashley is a latter day Don Quixote.
When Mike Ashley purchased Newcastle United for £134 million ($268 million), he could not have expected his investment to self-destruct as part of a total implosion of his dysfunctional business empire.
Mr Minimum Wage does not do self-enslavement on a financial level, although such a tactic is the one and only competitive advantage for his company, Sports Direct.
Over the last twelve months, the share price of Sports Direct has plummeted as Britain slides inexorably into recession. But the decline in value of Sports Direct is only partly accounted for by the overall declining market sentiment - fully 70% of the devaluation has been as a result of Ashley's inability to create a corporate culture that enjoys any degree of sustainability. The business model simply does not work.
Somebody so patently idiotic is only able to profit by enhanced psychopathy - a condition Ashley has in spades. For nature has denied him a gift for strategic thought, as it has denied him a gift for everything else.
Ashley has also performed his wonders at Newcastle. His whole reign has been characterised by a complete inability to plan ahead, a situation that he papers over by a determination to demonstate economies of truth, whenever his narcissistic self-promotional style falls flat, or when financial reality comes calling.
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