The company was established by John Wardle and David Makin (hence the nameJD), trading from a single shop inBury, Greater Manchester, in 1981.[5] The company opened a store in theArndale Centre inManchester in 1983.[6]Pentland Group bought Wardle's and Makin's shares for £44.6M in May 2005,[7] so acquiring 45% of the business.[8]
Early acquisitions of stores included 209 stores with the acquisition of First Sport fromBlacks Leisure Group in December 2001[9] and 70 stores from the administrators of Allsports in October 2005.[6] Subsequent acquisitions of businesses included:
Bank Stores, which sold fashion clothing, for around £19M in December 2007[10]
In addition, the company acquired the rugby heritage brands 'Canterbury' and 'Canterbury of New Zealand' as well as 'The Duffer of St. George' and 'Kooga Rugby' brands.[6]
The company acquiredChausport, which operated 75 small stores in France, in May 2009. It opened its first store in Malaysia in January 2016.[39] The company acquired an 80% stake in the Australian retailer Next Athleisure for A$6.6 million in late 2016.[40] This was followed by the opening of more stores in Australia in April 2017,[41] in South Korea in April 2018,[42] in Singapore in May 2018[43] and in Thailand in November 2018.[44] The company also acquired 80% of Cosmos Sport, based inCrete, in December 2021[45] and has launched a joint venture in Indonesia with a store opened in 2022.[46] In August 2023, it was announced JD Sports had acquired the remaining 40% of shares in theKrakow-headquartered footwear and clothing retail chain, Marketing Investment Group. JD Sports acquired the first 60% in April 2021.[47] JD Sports opened its first store in Poland in December 2021.[48] In December 2023, Sports Unlimited Retail, JD Sports'Dutchsubsidiary, was declaredbankrupt.[49]
The company has been the subject of accusations of mistreatment of its UK warehouse staff, with comparisons being made to Victorian "dark satanic mills" and "prison" conditions in 2016 and 2019.[51][52][53]
The company pushed its subsidiary, Go Outdoors, into administration in June 2020.[54] It then bought it back from administrators with the creditors losing much of their money.[55]
The company along withLeicester City were placed under investigation by theCompetition and Markets Authority (CMA) due to alleged breaches in competition law in September 2021.[56]The investigation was in regard to anti-competitive agreements over the sale of club branded merchandise in the UK. Both JD Sports andLeicester City said they were 'fully cooperating' with the CMA.[57][56][58][59]
Covert meetings between the Chief Executive Officers of JD Sports and Footasylum
After the company acquired Footasylum in March 2019, the CMA carried out an investigation and then, on the basis that the company's ownership of Footasylum might limit competition, ordered the company to dispose of Footasylum.[60] The company and, its subsidiary, Footasylum, were fined a combined £4.7 million after the CEO of JD Sports, Peter Cowgill, allegedly met covertly with the CEO of Footasylum, Barry Bown, on two occasions in July and August 2021 in breach of an order from the CMA not to exchange commercially sensitive information without CMA consent. One of the meetings was alleged to have taken place in a car park inBury, Greater Manchester.[61][62][63]
^"Trade mark number UK00002460933 - Event history".trademarks.ipo.gov.uk.Intellectual Property Office. 4 November 2020. Retrieved6 May 2024.Full Assignment RC000162070 received on date 06/10/2020 has been recorded, resulting to the change of ownership from HMV (Brands) Limited (id: 588693, country: GB) to JD Sports Fashion Plc (id: 30760, company number: 01888425, country: GB). The effective date of assignment is 22/02/2019.
£10,542.0 million (2024)[2]
£979.9 million (2024)[2]
