Overview

JD Sports – You may not have heard of them if you are outside the UK, but most mid-to-large towns and cities probably have at least a small JD Sports shop. They sell good quality sports clothes at decent prices and always have a really nice set of selections e.g. mens’, womens’, and kids’ specific styles and sizes. They’ve been around for over 30 years now, and they are still as cool as they were when I was a teenager. This is probably because they tend not to sell the cheapo end of the market, but sell a lot of the higher-priced Nike and Adidas trainers… no wonder JD Sports are known as ‘The King of Trainers’.

Why Buy JD Sports?

Well, they are in the FTSE 350, close the bottom. This is important, because they are at the lower end of the top 350 UK listed companies, which means there is a sense of importance from being amongst the top 350 companies in the UK, but also there could be room for significant growth. I added some shares to my NISA portfolio in late July, and they’re up over 16% since then; what’s more, JD Sports have been paying out a growing dividend for at least 7 years. In September, we had some news updates on JD Sports:

Highlights

• Record result for the half year with group profit before tax and exceptional items doubled
• Positive momentum in the Sports fascias in all territories with like for like store sales growth across the combined European fascias of 13%
• Continued progress in Outdoor with like for like store sales growth of 12%
• Further management focus concentrated on Fashion fascias
• Strong like for like comparatives in the Sports fascias in the second half
• Interim dividend increased by 3.4% from 1.1125p to 1.1500p

I believe that JD Sports has huge growth potential, this is a nice addition to the strong dividend history. They took over Blacks and Millets – two struggling outdoor clothing and equipment companies, but JD Sports are turning things around. They have already managed to shrink those losses incurred from the purchase from over £8m to less than £7m and have been negotiating rents and closing down the most underperforming stores… including my local Millets (which was quite awful, I have to say).

Since I have probably bored you enough by now, why not check out this article on JD Sports from September which comes from iii.co.uk (a broker and forum host who I use for information).

Let me know what you think! Leave a comment about JD Sports or anything else!