Sports Direct performance improves

Sports fashion retailer Sports Direct has revealed that its sales performance has improved at the expense of margins. In its Interim Management Statement on 18 February 2009, the Company, whilst commenting on the challenges in the retail market and across the economy as a whole, announced that the Board remained comfortable with the full year market consensus expectation for underlying EBITDA of approximately £135m.

Since 18 February 2009 trading within the Group’s largest division UK Retail, despite challenging economic conditions, has continued along the trend of higher than expected sales but lower than expected margin. As such, the Board remains confident of achieving underlying EBITDA of £135m.

The Company will announce its preliminary results for the year ending 26 April 2009 on Thursday 16 July 2009.

Sports Director currently operates 470 stores within the SPORTSDIRECT.com Retail group, including SportsDirect.com, Sports World, Field & Trek, Hargreaves Sports, Gilesports and Donnay International, as well as stores in Ireland, Belgium, Holland and Slovenia.