Mike Ashley to step down as head of Sports Direct owner – business live

Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of business, economics, financial markets and the eurozone.

The controversial reign of Mike Ashley as the head of Frasers, the owner of Sports Direct, will come to an end in May 2022, the company has announced this morning.

Under the plan Ashley would step down as chief executive but would remain on the board as an executive director.

Ashley will be replaced by his prospective son-in-law, Michael Murray, who has led the retail group’s strategy to move upmarket, a so-called “elevation strategy” in contrast to the manner in which Ashley grew Sports Direct in its early years.

Murray will take over from Ashley on 1 May 2022. “A reward and remuneration package is now under consideration on the assumption Michael Murray will assume the CEO role,” Frasers Group said. It added:

The group’s elevation strategy is transforming the business and receiving positive feedback from consumers and our brand partners, especially on projects such as the new Oxford Street Sports Direct which opened in June 2021.

The board consider it appropriate that Michael leads us forward on this increasingly successful elevation journey.

It’s looking like a busy day for early August. We will get through all of the companies reporting today – Rolls-Royce, Savills, Serco and Hammerson among them.

And let’s not forget the Bank of England monetary policy committee vote results at midday.

The key question today is about the pace of bond purchases under the Bank’s quantitative easing programme. All 14 City economists polled by Reuters believe the Bank’s ratesetters have left the pace of sales unchanged, but we will be on the lookout for signs of dissent.

The agenda

• 8:30am BST: Eurozone construction purchasing managers’ index (PMI) (July)
• 9am BST: UK new car registrations (July)
• 9:30am BST: UK construction PMI (July)
• 12pm BST: Bank of England interest rate decision
• 1:30pm BST: US initial jobless claims (week ending 31 July)
• 1:30pm BST: US international trade balance (June)