Peter Cowgill stepped down with immediate effect yesterday Helen Ashton (Interim Chair) and Neil Greenhalgh (CFO) hosted a conference call this morning to give background on yesterday’s announcement that Peter Cowgill (Executive Chair/CEO) was leaving with immediate effect. Helen is taking over as interim Chair (from NED and Chair of Audit & Risk Committee) with Kath Smith, NED and Senior Independent Director, becoming interim CEO. Kath has over 25 years’ sports and outdoor experience working with Adidas, Reebok and The North Face. Background to decision No one thing triggered Peter’s departure yesterday. The decision to split the Chair/CEO role was announced in July last year, so discussions have been ongoing. It became apparent to the Board that working out how Peter could split his role and fit into the organisational hierarchy was challenging with regards to how the reporting lines could work in practice. Recruitment of a new Chair/CEO is well progressed with news likely in the summer, as a dual search process was effectively being run. A governance review was also announced last year. There have been 2 incidents in public domain with CMA recently, with regards to Footasylum and replica football kits. JD has a new Board, which came together last year, and the Board wanted to ensure proper processes are in place so these governance/regulatory issues are avoided. The Group has grown very fast and needs more investment in internal compliance, legal, and risk management to tighten processes and procedures so can proactively manage risks going forward, rather than reactively. Effectively switching external cost to internal. An 18 month programme is in place to embed this into the culture, with the Board conscious not to impact the business operations. Undemanding valuation (CY22e PE 9.1x; CY23e PE 8.9x) for such a high quality growth company The call reassured that there are no financial control issues and results are still due in a couple of weeks. Peter’s legacy is having the vision, and creating the world-leading multi-channel retailer which JD Sports is today. He leaves behind a well-proven strategy with a driven, entrepreneurial, highly experienced management team. The recent trading update 2 weeks ago showed the strength of business momentum currently. We continue to believe that JD Sports is a high quality long term growth story, more than capable of delivering double-digit growth and with further acquisition potential (net cash c.£1.3bn).