Editco.net

Late last year we advised you to keep an eye on Sports Direct and its 'reclusive' boss Mike Ashley, and not so reclusive Mike is at it again.

Not content with annoying the City after taking £900m off them in the flotation of Sports Direct (he still controls the company with 57 per cent), he's since bought and sold a chunk of Adidas for a £40m profit, bought Newcastle United and told the board of Blacks Leisure where to get off (he owns 29 per cent).

Now, according to the increasingly sprightly Sunday Telegraph, he's going to fork out £35m for posh bike specialists Evans Cycles.

Ashley knows the value of a brand, he started off by adding unwanted brands like Donnay and Slazenger to his pile-it-high sports clothes emporia (then called Soccer World) years ago.

He then bought Lillywhite's, the posh London sports store, and filled it with tat. But it's still full of tourists.

His beef with Blacks is that they want to sell off its snow and surfer brand Freespirit. And indeed, regardless of Ashley's rather brutal tactics (he wants to replace the whole board and stuff it with his minions), this does look like madness.

And he's clearly spotted a good business opportunity in Evans, an 80-year old company which is making nearly £1m a year out of the cycling boom.

Ashley, no doubt, thinks he can make more out of this than the venture capitalists who were slated to buy it and, again, he's probably right.

The City doesn't like him because Sports Direct was floated at 300p and the shares are hovering just over 200p. These new ventures, as far as I can see, are being funded by Ashley personally.

If Sports Direct shares continue falling, he'll just buy it back and add it to his burgeoning private empire.

Ashley is supposedly a friend of rag trade tycoon Philip Green, who famously took on the City and lost before making his fortune with BHS and Arcadia.

Looks like Ashley's determined to go one better than even 'Sir' Philip.