Asos finance chief invests greater than £20,000 as greater losses spark sell-off

Asos CFO Dave Murray makes first purchase of the companies’ shares 

The chief financial officer of Asos bought more than £20,000 of the company’s shares on Tuesday as their price plummeted.

Stock market filings show Dave Murray, who joined the firm in April having previously held senior roles at Amazon and Sainsbury’s, bought 5,800 Asos shares at around £3.46 each, reflecting a total investment of roughly £20,068.

Asos shares were down by 7.8 per cent at market close yesterday as investors reacted to widening losses.

They continued their descent on Wednesday, falling 1.4 per cent to 346.6p.

Directors of publicly listed companies are required to disclose personal transactions in their company, and insider deals of this kind are considered a barometer of a company’s prospects.

This is Murray’s first purchase of Asos shares, while separate filings suggest he is the first insider to buy shares since non-executive director William Barker in early May.

Barker’s California-based investment business Camelot Capital Partners holds 17,613,381 shares in Asos.

Asos shares are down by around 11 per cent since the start of the year at 346.4p, and are 94 per cent below their April 2021 peak when lockdown conditions supercharged sales.

The fast fashion retailer has been fighting to turnaround  for two years after a post-Covid slump in demand led to weaker sales and mountains of excess stock.

The emergence of Chinese fast fashion giant Shein has not helped matters.

Stockopedia data suggests analysts are broadly neutral on Asos’s prospects, but brokers appear to think Asos shares remain undervalued.

UBS maintains a 12-month price target of 440p, roughly 27 per cent ahead of their current value, while analysts at Peel Hunt are more conservative with a 375p price target.

Peel Hunt said on Tuesday: ‘We expect the share price to be tied to operational KPIs, namely frequency, actives and ultimately revenue growth.

‘It is comforting to note that management has no intention of returning to the performance marketing, discount-led proposition of the past, with Black Friday not seen as a the huge acquisition tool it was.’