JD Sports pulls guidance, delays FY results in response to Covid-19 lockdown

JD Sports Fashion said it was pulling guidance and delaying publication of full year results after the UK government ordered non-essential shops to close down in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The High Street retailer said at this time of year it would normally expect its shops to contribute “substantially” to all of the group's physical store sales.

“Whilst our trading websites continue to accept and fulfil orders and, whilst we have seen a resilient performance to date in most territories, this represents a comparatively small mitigation in terms of overall profit contribution,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The government on Monday imposed a lockdown to stop the virus spreading and the Financial Conduct Authority over the weekend requested all listed companies observe a moratorium on the publication of preliminary results for at least two weeks.

“Given the potential for this request to be extended beyond this initial period, which would then cover the group's previously published reporting date of 15 April 2020, we believe it is prudent to announce a delay now to the publication of the group's results for the period to 1 February 2020,” the company said.

“We will announce a revised date for the publication of the results in due course but, at this stage, we would anticipate that this revised date will be in the second half of May. This revised date would also allow the Group to provide greater clarity of the impact of COVID-19 on the Group's performance for the current year to 30 January 2021.”