Personal Life
Ashley grew up in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, where his parents still live in a modest bungalow. He was educated at Burnham Grammar School.
In 1988 aged 24, he married Linda, a Swedish-born economics graduate, and the couple had three children: Matilda, Anna and Oliver. The family home was a former 16-bedroom hotel. The couple quietly divorced in 2003, agreeing one of the biggest settlements in British legal history, with Ashley reportedly handing over the family home, property and assets with total worth of £50m.
Little is known of Ashley's private life today. He is known to prefer casual dress of shirt and chino's or a track suit over a suit, and often carries his essential business tool of a mobile phone in a plastic carrier bag over a brief case. Thought to live alone in a large house on the edge of a Hertfordshire village, the building is hidden by trees, and CCTV cameras keep watch over the locked gates at the entrance to the half-mile drive. When the local newspaper attempted to find out more about him, they eventually resorted to placing an advert in their own pages appealing for information - No one responded.
Read more about this topic: Mike Ashley (businessman)
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