Busy session in London: JD Sports and Debenhams lead trade

The London Stock Market held a busy session for fashion stocks,

with JD Sports Fashion, Burberry, Debenhams and Next seeing a good deal of trade on corporate releases. Meanwhile, Mothercare remains under the City´s radar, as well as French Connection.

Also good news for those who work in retail in the UK, as shop staff have enjoyed above-inflation pay increases since April 2013, as reported by ‘The Telegraph’.

Tuesday Debenhams said it was “accelerating the pace of change” in an attempt to recover from a difficult six months in which pre-tax profit declined by almost a quarter. The department store operator is set to cut its aggressive promotion strategy to help its figures up. Debenhams said it had trailed behind its rivals in terms of delivery options, despite its attempts to improve in time for Christmas, with next-day click and collect and a 10pm cut-off for next-day delivery.

JD Sports Fashion PLC Tuesday reported a strong trading performance for its last financial year, with an increase in both profits and revenues, driven by a strong performance from its core sports business in the UK and Ireland. Excluding exceptional items, associated with restructuring its outdoor business and fashion businesses, its pretax profit was up 27 percent to 77 million pounds.

For the 52-weeks to February 1, JD Sports Group's pretax profit rose 5 percent to GBP 57.9 million, up from 55.1 million pounds the prior year, driven by its core sportswear business, including JD and footwear store Size, and a 5.7 percent increase in overall group revenues for the year to 1.33 billion pounds, ahead of the 1.26 billion pounds it recorded the prior year, including revenues from its now disposed Canterbury business.

Shares in Debenhams closed up 3.45 pence at 81 pence, while JD Sports were down 14 pence to 1,600 pence.