JD Sports posts record half year profits

Sports and outdoor fashion retailer JD Sports Fashion has posted another record half year result, with pre-tax profits up 33%, as its outdoor business posted a positive half year profit for the first time.

The Bury-based company increased its half year pre-tax profits to £102.7m on a turnover of £1.37bn for the half year to July 29.

The core sports fashion division remains the foundation of the business and the group added 12 more stores to its UK and Ireland portfolio during the period.

This continued strength is being complemented the group’s international growth – it opened 23 stores across mainland Europe, as well as its first in Australia.

Peter Cowgill, executive chairman, said: “The base of our ongoing excellent multichannel retail performance comes from the continued strength of our core UK and Ireland Sports Fashion fascias.

“We have strengthened our foundations by significant progression internationally both instore and online so that the JD fascia now has a much broader store and multichannel consumer reach and brand influence globally.”

The group’s outdoor division delivered a positive H1 result for the first time with an operating profit of £100,000 (2016: £2.3m loss), which it said had largely been driven by Go Outdoors.

Excluding a non-trading amortisation charge of £1.9m, Go Outdoors delivered a profit from its trading activity of £4m. Meanwhile, Blacks and Millets saw a reduction in first half losses from £2.3m to £1.6m.

Cowgill said: “We are still only in the preliminary stages of our planning for an enlarged Outdoors business and we would not anticipate making any material changes to the operations of any of our businesses in the next year.

“However, we believe that the availability of product in the Go Outdoors stores, and consequently the sales, could be enhanced by having a greater proportion of stock supplied from central warehousing. This is a longer term objective.”

The company said it expects overall second half sales to be at a similar level and that its year end result will be at the upper end of expectstions – at between £268m – £290m.

The company increased its interim dividend by 4% to 0.26p.