10th Jan 2020 07:22
(Alliance News) - Sportswear firm JD Sports Fashion PLC on Friday reiterated its full-year guidance and "positive like-for-like trends" over the pivotal Christmas trading period, bucking gloom in the wider UK retail sector.
The FTSE 100 company said annual headline pretax profit, after removing the impact of IFRS 16, will fall in the "upper quartile" of market consensus range of GBP403 million and GBP433 million. This could represent a annual jump of as much as 27% from last year's pretax profit of GBP339.9 million.
IFRS 16 is an accounting rule governing the financial treatment of leases.
"Against a backdrop of widely reported retail challenges in the group's core UK market, it is encouraging to report positive like-for-like trends in the group's global sports fashion fascias, particularly overseas," the company said.
JD Sports added that its relevance is growing internationally and a number of its markets have different timings for their post-Christmas sale periods.
Aside from the UK, JD Sports also operates in mainland Europe, the US, Australia and South Korea.
"The ultimate outturn will reflect trading in these markets through the remainder of January."
In the first half of the financial year ending February 1, revenue in the company's US segment raced to GBP730.3 million from GBP180.0 million, with Europe, excluding the UK, seeing a 21% year-on-year boost to GBP727.0 from GBP601.9.
The company will reports its full-year results on April 15.
Shares in JD Sports closed 0.9% higher at 826.20 pence each in London on Thursday.
By Eric Cunha; [email protected]
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