More than £15m has been wiped off the value of Mulberry after Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group confirmed it would not make a bid for the luxury British brand. Frasers, which is also considering bids for ailing the department store chain Debenhams and parts of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, said it would not make an offer for Mulberry within six months unless there was a “material change of circumstances”, a rival bid or under agreement with the handbag maker’s board. The announcement will spur speculation that Ashley intends to focus his energies on Debenhams and Arcadia’s portfolio of retail chains. However, time is running out on Debenhams as Ashley continues to wrangle over the structure of deal. An offer had been expected last weekend, with other potential bidders, including the owner of the US department store Barneys, standing in the wings. Shares in Mulberry fell nearly 11% in the light of Frasers’ statement on Thursday. In line with many other fashion and luxury goods firms, the Somerset-based company has had a tough 2020 as it was forced to close stores and high-spending tourists stayed away from the UK. Sales decreased by 29% in the six months to 26 September, when Mulberry closed eight of its 120 stores and made a £2m pretax loss. Frasers, which was formerly known as Sports Direct, said in November it was considering a takeover of Mulberry after upping its stake in the struggling brand to 37%. Ashley’s interest in Mulberry first emerged in February when he bought 12.5% of shares in the company. Frasers then acquired 4.3m shares from the Icelandic bank Kaupthing in a deal worth £6.45m. Under Takeover Panel rules, Frasers was required to make a bid for the entire company after its stake topped 29.9%. Frasers said last month that the panel had waived that requirement because Mulberry’s biggest shareholder, Challice, which is the investment vehicle for Singapore’s Ong family, had a 56% stake. However, Frasers said then that it was “reserving its right to make a voluntary offer for the company”. Under the panel’s rules, the deadline for a decision on a “firm intention” to make an offer was 17 December.