Mike Ashley, the controversial owner of Sports Direct, went on a one-man charm offensive yesterday as shares in his troubled sports retailing empire plunged to a record low after full-year profits tumbled by 50 per cent.

The entrepreneur, who bought Newcastle United Football Club last year, said Sports Direct would be far more prudent in the coming year and added that he had even begun to listen to experts in the City he has lambasted his entire career. “There are some pretty sharp cookies,” he said. “If you didn't listen to them you'd be a fool.”

He insisted that Sports Direct would emerge far stronger from the slowdown by going back to basics, focusing on stock control, shelving non-essential projects and adopting a “bunker” mentality. “Our thing will be to focus on the UK retail business and really make sure the printing press as we call it is operating,” he said. “It may only be laden with dollar bills instead of 100-dollar bills but let's make sure it keeps on printing.

“When we come out of this slowdown in one or two years, someone is going to make a mint. That's why we are getting in the bunker now. When we come out, we want to make sure it's us on the white stallion and JJB Sports on the donkey.”

Only a rival, Blacks Leisure, and the media raised the billionaire's ire in his first City outing for months. He said Blacks, the outdoor clothing chain in which he has a 29.4 per cent stake, was mad to test a new format in Central London. “What about Slough? Holborn and Kensington are hardly representative.” Meanwhile, press claims of a £200 million loss on a share trade in HBOS were just “wrong”. “My stake in HBOS is massively, massively reduced,” he said. “I made £72 million on Adidas shares and no one wanted to believe that.”

Referring to other claims in May that he had won £3.1 million on the spin of roulette wheel, he said: “It's like that story about me winning at the casino. Absolute bull****, I don't even bet on 17.”

Sports Direct said that underlying pre-tax profits fell 51.1 per cent to £85 million in the year to April 27, its first full year on the stock market, as it cut margins to boost sales and suffered from poor weather and the England football team's failure to qualify for Euro 2008.

Revenue across the group, which runs the Sports World and Lilywhites chains, fell 6.5 per cent to £1.26 billion.

The group yet again failed to report like-for-like sales figures, which strips out the benefit of new store openings, but promised to produce them next year. Shares fell 11.5 per cent to 63p. The company floated at 300p early last year in a move that generated a near £1 billion windfall for Mr Ashley, who built the business up from one sports store in Maidenhead in 1982.

Mr Ashley's relationship with the City reached breaking point last year amid a flurry of profit warnings. He called the City “cry babies” and labelled Philip Dorgan, a critical analyst at Panmure Gordon, a moron.

The entrepreneur yesterday insisted he had learnt his lessons and that, despite the low share price, had no intention of going back on his promise of making Sports Direct a success as a public company.However, he conceded that the appointment of new chairman was still little more than a pipe dream. “Who?” he smiled. “I'd love a new chairman, can't wait.”

Mr Ashley, the executive deputy chairman, said there was little clue as to when the current slowdown would end but that Sports Direct was confident of keeping profits steady over the coming year.

“Customers are definitely, definitely being more selective,” he said. “You have to have the product spot on, every bit of it, price and everything that goes with it. Consumers have to have the latest product or they want extra value. The middle ground is getting murdered, they want the latest model or they want it for nothing.

“Central London is the least affected, it's the lower end that's getting hit the hardest. We just have to get back to basics.”

The world according to Mike Ashley

— ‘When we come out of this slowdown in one or two years someone is going to make a mint. That’s why we are getting in the bunker now. When we come out, we want to make sure it’s us on the white stallion and JJB Sports on the donkey’

— ‘Customers are definitely, definitely being more selective. You have to have the product spot on, every bit of it, price and everything that goes with it’

— ‘Am I cutting back? What, you mean ten crates of Bolly or twelve?’ ‘Our thing will be to focus on the UK retail business and really make sure the printing press, as we call it, is operating. It may only be laden with dollar bills instead of 100-dollar bills but let’s make sure that it keeps on printing’

— ‘There are some unbelievably bright people in the City. There are some pretty sharp cookies. If you didn’t listen to them you’d be a fool’

— ‘Not being a plc would be a massive step down and I have absolutely nil intention of going private’ ‘I’d love a chairman, can’t wait. We are going to have good corporate governance. We are going to climb that hill’

— ‘We are not always seeing eye to eye with Blacks Leisure management and what they are doing. Mr Gillis [the chief executive] seems to think the meeting we had was rather wonderful. I don’t know what his definition of friendly is, but it’s not mine. If he thinks that’s getting on I’d hate to see him in an argument’

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