Sports Direct sales surge 18% in 13-weeks to Sept 10

Current Trading Update

Group sales for the 13 weeks ending 28 July 2013 were up 18.2% to £613.3m (2013: £519.0m) and gross profit increased 23.2% to £260.1m (2013: £211.1m). ^{(1) (2)}

Sports Retail sales in the 13 week period increased 14.5% to £505.3m (2013: £441.4m), and Sports Retail gross profit increased 20.3% to £215.6m (2013: £179.2m). ⁽¹⁾

UK Sports Retail square footage at 28 July 2013 was circa 4m sq. ft. (2013: circa 4m sq. ft.).

Premium Lifestyle sales in the period were up 98.3% to £57.1m (2013: £28.8m) with gross profit increasing 91.7% to £23.2m (2013: £12.1m). ⁽²⁾

The Brands division revenue increased by 4.3% to £50.9m (2013: £48.8m), and the corresponding gross profit increased by 7.6% to £21.3m (2013: £19.8m).

There has been no material change in the financial position of the Group since the end of the most recent reporting period on 28 April 2013.

Sales and gross profit of Sports Eybl & Sports Experts AG, which was acquired on 26 June 2013, are excluded from these figures.

Sales and gross profit of Republic, which was acquired on 28 February 2013, are included in the current period figures, but not the prior period.

During this period, UK Sports Retail has opened 11 and closed three core stores, three of which were core relocations.  We also opened two non-core stores.  European Sports Retail opened three stores - one in Spain and two in Poland.

Dave Forsey, Chief Executive of Sports Direct International plc, said, “As we highlighted at our Preliminary Results in July, the Group has experienced a strong start to the year with trading ahead of management’s expectations.  This performance is in part attributable to the historic investment in gross margin; the on-going investment in product range and availability; and continued optimisation of our online and in-store product offer.

“Weare in the process of integrating our recent acquisitions, including Republic in the UK, Sports Eybl & Sports Experts in Austria and Sportland in the Baltic region.  As a result, we continue to target our internal stretch underlying EBITDA target of £310m (before the charge for the 2011 Employee Bonus Share Scheme).”

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