In an interim report for the first 18 weeks of its current financial year through June 8, JD Sports Fashion says the group's performance was in line with market expectations. In the U.K. and Ireland, the group's sports retail chains delivered a 7 percent increase on a comparable store basis as compared to a year ago. Its outdoor retail stores recorded positive comps, but JD admitted that this was achieved “at a significant margin sacrifice.”
In contrast with previous financial reports, JD is now including its Irish Champion Sports chain into the figures for the U.K. and Ireland, as it is now largely serviced from the U.K. With regard to the recently acquired Blacks and Millets outdoor retail chains, JD defines their return to profitability as “work in progress,” but is predicting for the time being a “substantial but significantly reduced” loss in the current year, with most of the progress to be achieved in the second half.
Much will depend on the decisions that will be taken by the new management to revitalize Blacks and Millets, says JD. The latter chain has a new managing director, Lee Bagnall, who started work this month. He was formerly the chief operating officer at Go Outdoors.
No mention was made in the interim report of Chaussport and other sports retail operations owned by the group outside the U.K.and Ireland. However, sport is performing better than fashion in the company's domestic market. Its two main fashion chains, Bank and Scott, saw their sales decline by 5 percent on a same-store basis in the first 18 weeks of the new financial year. They are expected to generate higher losses in the first half than in the same period a year ago.
As for the brands owned by the group, JD says that their results will be impacted by the disposal of Canterbury and the knock-on impact of JJB Sports' disappearance from the market. Canterbury is now the property of the Pentland Group, majority shareholder in JD Sports Fashion.
