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11 Jan 2021
JD Sports Fashion : FY21 PBT guidance materially ahead - Buy

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JD Sports Fashion : FY21 PBT guidance materially ahead - Buy
JD Sports Fashion Plc (JD:LON) | 80.6 0 (-0.1%) | Mkt Cap: 4,137m
- Published:
11 Jan 2021 -
Author:
Ben Hunt, CFA | Kate Calvert -
Pages:
7 -
FY21 PBT due to be 35% ahead of consensus with guidance for at least £400m vs company-complied consensus at £295m. Total revenues for the 22 weeks to 2 January in Group LFL businesses were ahead 5%, with online helping to offset more challenging store performance. UK sales were up c.10% for the period, with the business managing 100% sales retention through lockdown 2 (online up over 300%) versus 65% in lockdown 1. US saw August sales down (impacted by pull forward into Q2 from the US stimulation package) with sales up double digits in September/August and slightly up in November/December. Trends in Europe continued from H1 with sales in France/Germany okay and Iberia more challenging. Australian sales were up double digits with South Korea/Malaysia weak, affected by fewer Chinese tourists.
Guidance for FY22 PBT to be 5-10% ahead of FY21, which assumes UK store closures could continue to Easter and other geographies impacted. This also includes the costs of ‘re-export’ tariffs to Europe, a consequence of the small print in the UK/EU trade deal. This implies a FY22 PBT range of £420m-440m vs consensus at £488m which did not reflect either of these two factors.
Upgrade FY21E PBT by 48% to £402m/Cut FY22E PBT by 14% to £451m to reflect company guidance, which we suspect will prove conservative.
Valuation (CY22E PE 18x) does not reflect JD’s strong cash generation nor its future growth prospects. Post pandemic, we expect JD to resume sustainable double-digit growth. It is an exciting international roll-out story with a great opportunity to leverage established growth platforms in the US and Europe, backed by its highly profitable UK market position. It also has the balance sheet (we forecast net cash of c.£600m at year end) to take advantage of other interesting acquisitions, like the recent Shoe Palace deal. TP, rolled forward a year to low/mid 20s CY22E PE, raised to 1075p (prev 950p).