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03 Apr 2020
JD Sports Fashion : Positioned to resume growth – COVID-19 downgrade - Buy

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JD Sports Fashion : Positioned to resume growth – COVID-19 downgrade - Buy
JD Sports Fashion Plc (JD:LON) | 80.6 0 (-0.1%) | Mkt Cap: 4,137m
- Published:
03 Apr 2020 -
Author:
Ben Hunt, CFA | Kate Calvert -
Pages:
8 -
Most of JD’s physical estate is closed. Its UK stores closed on 23 March, with the US shutting the week before and Europe the week beginning 9th March. This is effectively all of its physical estate. Online, which is typically 20% of annual sales, is still open as are its stores in Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Australia).
We have modelled the profit impact of a 25% and 35% fall in FY21E Group sales, looking at the incremental profit ‘lost’ on these sales which would be higher margin than the reported margin due to fixed costs. It is too early to model the impact at the individual business. This is challenging given the wide difference in JD’s EBIT margins (pre-IFRS 16) between businesses (JD UK 16%; JD Europe 8.5%; and JD US 4.9%) and is unlikely to be any more accurate.
Downgrade FY21E/FY22E PBT by 79%/7% which assumes a 2-month shut-down, then 2 months of sales down 50% and 3 months of sales down 10%. This implicitly assumes online is also closed which is not the case currently. Our FY20E PBT forecast is unaffected, with results now expected in late May.
Sufficient financial headroom to cover a 6-month shutdown based on our cash burn scenario. JD confirmed it has £1.25bn of debt headroom when it released its COVID-19 update (24th March) and we estimate cash burn at c.£132m a month, which does not include any financial aid that it may be able to access in its international markets.
Undemanding valuation (CY21E PE 11.2x) for a business we believe is well-positioned with its market-leading, multi-channel proposition to quickly resume its historic double-digit growth trajectory. We expect the athleisure market to rebound relatively quickly following months of being cooped up and do not expect the brand to flood the market with surplus product.