13th Apr 2021 09:04
(Alliance News) - JD Sports Fashion PLC expects profit in its new financial year to exceed pre-pandemic levels, it said on Tuesday.
The sportswear retailer said it anticipates headline pretax profit, meaning before exceptional items, to be GBP475 million to GBP500 million in the year to January 2022.
That would be up as much as 19% from pretax profit by the same measure of GBP421.3 million in the year that ended this past January 30, which was down 4.0% from GBP438.8 million the year before. In January, the FTSE 100 firm had said it expected to report headline pretax profit of at least GBP400 million.
Bury-based JD Sports said it delivered a resilient performance in the recent financial year despite its high-street stores being closed for a majority of the year under lockdown restrictions.
Annual revenue was GBP6.17 billion, up 0.9% from GBP6.11 billion in financial 2020.
JD posted statutory pretax profit of GBP324.0 million, down 7.0% from GBP348.5 million.
It said its UK division retained 70% per cent of its revenue after moving online during the first lockdown in March 2021. This increased to 100% when stores were forced to close again in the November lockdown.
JD also hailed "exceptional trading" in the US, which it said was partly due to increased consumer demand prompted by government stimulus payments from Washington. It also pursued an aggressive expansion plan.
A final and full-year dividend was paid of 1.44 pence, up from 0.28p, driven by "profitability from the group's international operations, particularly those in the United States".
JD said the annual performance demonstrated the significant retention of sales and profitability through a period of global uncertainty and multiple periods of temporary store closures brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the year it launched its first flagship store for JD in Times Square, New York with a "positive reaction from customers and international brand partners".
JD Sports did not say if it would return any of the UK government's financial assistance despite finishing the year with a cash balance of GBP795.4 million.
"The group acknowledges the various public sector initiatives which were put in place in a number of territories where it operates to provide support to businesses on taxation, including those related to property occupation, and the costs of employment," the retailer said. "This support included the furlough scheme, and its equivalents in other countries, which achieved their objectives of conserving jobs as, without this support, it is likely we would have had to make tens of thousands of our colleagues, particularly those who work in stores, redundant."
JD Sports noted that it was granted a GBP300 million lending facility under the UK government's Covid Corporate Financing Facility Scheme. However, it didn't access the facility, and the scheme closed on March 22.
Shares were trading at 935.80 pence in London on Tuesday, up 2.4%.
By Will Paige; [email protected]
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