World Cup boosts Sports Direct
Oct 20 2010 By Karen Dent, The Journal
SALES at Mike Ashley's sports wear shops were boosted by the World Cup but the chain warned today that the start of next year would be "challenging" right across the retail sector.
Sports Direct International, which learned yesterday that both it and rival JJB will not be charged following a year-long probe by the Serious Fraud Office into allegations of cartel activity, said the results for the first half of its financial year would beat last year’s figures.
The Toon owner’s company revealed that sales in the nine weeks to September 26 jumped by 5.4% to £295m from £280m in the same period last year, while gross profit was up by 5.4% to £117m from £111m.
Sports Direct has also been trying to bring down its debts and it reckons this will be “in the region of £240m” by October 24, down from £362m last year.
Company chief executive, Dave Forsey, said: “Following the first quarter of our financial year which included the World Cup tournament we remain pleased with the continuing strong underlying performance across all our divisions.
“In light of the above, our group's first half results will be significantly above the corresponding period last year, however we believe the early part of 2011 will be extremely challenging for all retailers in the UK.”
He said the group was aiming for a full year profit of around £205m before taking off the £10m in payments to staff under its bonus scheme.
“The board believes that the bonus share scheme has played an important role in delivering this strong performance,” said Mr Forsey.
“The current plan is to implement a new scheme that covers the next two financial years...2012 which is a non tournament year and 2013 which includes the London Olympics and hopefully home nation participation in the Euro 2012 tournament.”
The company will publish its results for the half year to October 24 on December 16.
