Sports Direct will also suspend its controversial “six strikes and you’re out” disciplinary procedure and pledged to pay warehouse staff above the National Minimum Wage.
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Mr Ashley has lashed out at unions, blaming them for the retailer’s long list of problems and claiming MPs do not understand the scale of the business.
On Tuesday the troubled sportswear retailer had published the results of a review that identified “serious shortcomings” in practices at its warehouse in Shirebrook, central England, where it employs thousands of agency workers.
“Shirebrook and Sports Direct are a symptom of a malaise in our society in the way in which we have a lack of respect for people doing vital and important jobs, who are underpaid, under-represented and treated with contempt”.
The businessman replied: “I made a commitment to make a difference, I am trying, don’t pull me down”.
Sports Direct has apologised and offered better working conditions.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting Sports Direct reiterated that Ashley, who owns 55 percent of its equity, has confirmed to the board he has no plans to take the company back into private ownership. In 2008ish maybe nine, the web turnover was circa £10 million. The facilities built across the road were built for retail.
Hartlepool MP Iain Wright, chair of the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, said: “We won’t be going away until Sports Direct becomes the exemplary employer it says it wants to be”.
During the tour, Mr Ashley said he did not “knowingly” or “deliberately” run the operation badly, adding that the firm’s rapid growth and the sheer scale of the business had made it hard to get it right.
A majority of independent shareholders voted against keeping Keith Hellawell as chairman, despite him having Mr Ashley’s backing.
However, Dr Hellawell said he will step down at next year’s annual general meeting if he doesn’t have shareholders’ support.
On top of that, he has taken visitors on a tour of the company’s main United Kingdom distribution centre at Shirebrook, Derbyshire, which has been at the centre of accusations of poor working practices that led the MPs to compare it with a Victorian workhouse and which was at the centre of a report published on Tuesday by the law firm RPC for the board, much of which was highly critical.
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Sports Direct International also said it estimates underlying full-year earnings coming in at about £300m in the current financial year, which is dependent on group sales growth of at least 9%.
