Frasers Group has launched a £1.7 billion takeover bid for Hugo Boss, offering cash for the 74 per cent of the German fashion house it does not already own in the boldest move yet in Mike Ashley’s long march upmarket.

The FTSE-listed retail group, which counts Sports Direct and GAME among its stable of brands, is offering €38 per share for the premium menswear and womenswear label, whose name has become a fixture in UK business pages in recent years. Under German takeover law, once Frasers crosses the 30 per cent threshold of Hugo Boss’s share capital and voting rights, it is obliged to make a mandatory offer for every share it does not hold.

Subject to regulatory clearances, Frasers expects the offer to complete in the second half of 2026.

The bid is the logical conclusion of a strategy Frasers has pursued for years: building stakes in brands it believes are undervalued, then tightening its grip. The group recently built a 6 per cent holding in Puma as it targeted a turnaround at the struggling sportswear maker, and has long described Hugo Boss as one of the top five brands across its entire business.

Frasers, where Mike Ashley stepped back from day-to-day leadership in 2022, was at pains to stress continuity. The group said it remains a long-term investor in Hugo Boss and continues to support both Stephan Sturm, chair of the supervisory board, and chief executive Daniel Grieder. Frasers chief executive Michael Murray, who sits on the Hugo Boss supervisory board, recused himself from the board’s discussion of the offer.

The deal’s financing is already in place. Frasers has entered into an acquisition facility agreement with lenders including BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg, NatWest and Standard Chartered, giving it a credit line for the offer and associated costs if required. The group may also draw on its existing term loan and revolving credit facility.

The prize is considerable. Hugo Boss reported revenues of almost €4.3 billion in 2025 and EBITDA of €782 million, with gross assets of €3.7 billion and net assets of almost €1.6 billion. Yet the German group’s shares have been trading at around half their value of three years ago, after a prolonged slump in luxury spending, a discount Ashley’s dealmakers have clearly decided is too tempting to ignore.

If the offer succeeds, it would rank among the largest acquisitions in Frasers’ history, transforming a group built on discount sportswear into the owner of one of Europe’s best-known premium fashion houses.