Member Article

Mixed picture for high street sports stores

It was a picture of mixed results in the Sports retailing sector today, as rivals Sports Direct and JJB posted disparate results.

A gulf in performance emerged between the two sports high street brands, as Sports Direct announced strong sales, struggling JJB called for an urgent cash injection.

Since April the JJB Group has experienced a deterioration in trading, as like-for-like sales for the 24 weeks ended July 15, decreased by 8.7%.

A statement from the Group said there were “material uncertainties facing the business which included the ability of the Group to continue to implement its business recovery turnaround strategy in light of the macroeconomic environment.”

JJB currently has a bank debt of £17.7m, and despite being rescued in April, has failed to performance around.

Bob Corliss, chairman-elect, said: “There is a lot of work to do, and we have hit the ground running.

In contrast, rivals Sports Direct, enjoyed an underlying pretax profit rise of 17.3% to £162.1m, in the 53 weeks to April 29.

The firm, belonging to billionaire Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, saw an 82% rise in online sales during the year. This now represents 11.6% of all retail sales.

Chief executive, Dave Forsey, said: “Our colleagues have worked hard during the year and, as a result, we have exceeded the first underlying EBITDA target of £215m (before the charge for the bonus share scheme) and the “super stretch” target of £225m.

“Also, those staff eligible for the 2009 Bonus Share Scheme will be receiving their first share awards in August 2012, with the remainder of their shares vesting in August 2013.

“Excitement is building towards the Olympics and we continue to target our 2013 “super stretch” underlying EBITDA objective of £270m (before the charge for the bonus share schemes). We are very excited about the London Olympics that begin next week and we wish all Great British athletes the very best of luck.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .