Primary Recommendation

Sports Direct

October 2012

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

The expression â€œzero sum gameâ€ has often been used to describe mature industries in which certain companies can only do well at the expense of others, but sometimes this situation can deliver a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if a major player suddenly goes out of business. In the cut-throat world of sports retailing the most startling example of a reversal of fortune has been JJB Sports, 0.36p, which as recently as 2007 was making Â£47m pretax profit from sales of over Â£800m. But numerous trading setbacks have seen it rack up almost Â£300m of losses in the past two years and with debts rising and its lenders getting twitchy it is in grave danger of going under. One of the biggest recipients of JJB's demise has been Sports Direct, a l ...

To access our archive of articles and to receive current issues you need to subscribe.

Subscribe now

Already a subscriber? Login

Centamin Egypt - Removal of political uncertainty should herald re-rating

Sports Direct (September 2017)

Sports Direct - Change of strategy (February 2017)

Sports Direct - Resumes share buy-back program (November 2016)

Sports Direct - Share buyback lifts sentiment (September 2016)

Sports Direct - Very attractive PE of 10 after weather related slow-down (February 2016)

Sports Direct - Big reduction in net debt (September 2015)

Sports Direct - Gross margins jump (September 2014)

Sports Direct (August 2014)

Sports Direct - Founder sells 24m shares (May 2014)

Sports Direct - Bonus targets made tougher (April 2014)

Sports Direct - Gain has reached 105% (February 2014)

Sports Direct - Exploiting huge gap left by JJB's demise (September 2013)

Sports Direct - Two International aquisitions (August 2013)

Sports Direct (June 2013)

Sports Direct - Acquires 114 Republic stores from administrator (April 2013)

Sports Direct - "Super stretch" bonus scheme targets increased (February 2013)

Sports Direct - Aquires plum JJB assets (November 2012)

Sports Direct (December 2011)

Sports Direct - Net debt more than halved (September 2011)

Sports Direct (June 2011)

Sports Direct (March 2011)

Sports Direct - Take a part profit (December 2010)

Sports Direct - Net debt falls by Â£119m (September 2010)

Sports Direct - Sports retailer beating expectations (March 2010)

Sports Direct - EBITDA to be at least Â£150m (December 2009)

Sports Direct - Take profits (October 2009)

Sports Direct - Shares have rallied well (September 2009)

Sports Direct - Strong sales over festive period (April 2009)

Sports Direct - Largest sports retailer on the mend; PE is just 6.2 (February 2009)

With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

All material on this website is protected by copyright. You may use Information retrieved from the www.scsw.co.uk website for your own personal non-commercial use which means that you may not sell or copy this information to any third party without prior written consent. ISSN 1358-183X