T HE BILLIONAIRE retailer never courts publicity. But when Mike Ashley does open up, the results are colourful. Giving evidence in a court case in 2017 he boasted of his binge drinking, although he did dispute one account that had him vomiting into a fireplace after 12 pints of beer and chasers. Hauled before a House of Commons select committee to explain allegations of sweatshop conditions at his company’s warehouse, Mr Ashley confessed that he had lost control of Sports Direct. The eminently sober Institute of Directors has called the firm’s actions a “scar on British business”.

Yet Mr Ashley is now seen by some as the saviour of the high street. Bricks-and-mortar retailers have been devastated recently; the country’s main shopping streets suffered a net loss of 1,123 stores in the first half of last year, and expect this year to be worse. But Mr Ashley has been picking over the carrion, snapping up the famous names slain by online shopping.

His latest bid is for HMV, a music chain which collapsed in December for the second time in six years. Last August he bought the House of Fraser group of department stores after it collapsed into administration, and in October he swooped on the bankrupt Evans Cycles chain. In 2017 he started buying shares in the Debenhams group. He now controls 29% of that business, which has just endured an awful Christmas trading period. He has also taken over Flannels, a fashion chain, and bought stakes in another, French Connection, as well as Game Digital, a struggling video-games retailer.

Even if Mr Ashley closes many of these chains’ shops, to cut costs, he will have saved some of Britain’s most famous brands. “Only God could keep them all open,” he told a committee of startled MP s in December. During the same performance he advocated new policies to save what is left of the “dying” high street, including free parking and a tax on firms that sell more than 20% of their goods online.

But beyond some big promises, such as a vow to transform House of Fraser into “the Harrods of the high street”, Mr Ashley has yet to articulate a vision of what he is going to do with all his acquisitions. Is he just a circling vulture, or does this self-made man have a plan?

Mr Ashley is a “superb retailer”, believes Bryan Roberts of TCC, a retail analyst. He opened his first shop in 1982 at the age of 17. That venture grew into Sports Direct, now the country’s second-largest sportswear retailer by value, with more than 400 stores. He built the business by buying up famous sports brands such as Dunlop, Slazenger and Lonsdale. Mr Ashley, born nowhere near Tyneside, also bought Newcastle United football club in 2007. Adding companies such as Evans Cycles to this core sports business may make sense.

It is harder to see how the non-sports acquisitions fit into the portfolio. One answer, argues Mr Roberts, is that Mr Ashley could start “cross-pollinating” brands, the on-trend way to fill up empty shops. Thus just as Sainsbury’s bought Argos, a catalogue retailer, and put its outlets in its supermarkets, so HMV , Sports Direct and other brands could go into Debenhams. Mr Ashley bought his slice of Game Digital to provide e-sports in his Sports Direct shops. Selfridges, a posh department store, does cross-pollination well—and, unlike everyone else, had a booming Christmas.