MIKE Ashley's Sports Direct International has seen its shares climb more than 7% after posting a strong increase in sales.
The retailer said group sales were up 11.2% from £589.5 million to £655.4m in the 13 weeks to January 26 while gross profit grew 14.6% from £244.8m to £280.7m. The core sports division saw its sales grow 6.9% to £529.9m, from £495.8m with gross profit 12.9% greater at £230m.
The upmarket premium lifestyle arm, which includes Cruise and USC, saw a 52.5% hike in sales to £71.2m with gross profits surging more than 39% to £28.4m although the prior year comparable figure did not include a contribution from Republic, which was acquired in February 2013.
Revenue from the brand owning operation in the period to January 26 was 15.5% higher at £54.3m with gross profits there growing 7.7% from £20.7m to £22.3m.
Dave Forsey, chief executive, said the company remains on track to hit its target of £310m in underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.
The company did not give any further details on a potential collaboration with Debenhams.
Sports Direct shares closed up 51p at 767p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article