JD Sports raises £464.2m to fund acquisitions
JD Sports has confirmed it has raised £464.2m via a share placing to fund future acquisitions.
The placing of the ordinary shares represents approximately 6% of the existing issued share capital of the company and represents a discount of approximately 2.5% to the mid-market closing price of 815p on 3 February 2021.
A total of 58,393,989 new ordinary shares in the capital of the company have been placed by Investec Bank and Peel Hunt at an issue price of 795p per share.
Applications have been made to the Financial Conduct Authority for the placing shares to be admitted to the premium listing segment of the London Stock Exchange, which expected to take place on 8 February 2021.
JD Sports has made two recent acquisitions in the US in recent weeks including footwear chain Shoe Palace and sports retailer DTLR as well as Leicester-based independent Wellgosh. It has also been in the mix when it came to the potential sale of Debenhams and Sir Philip Green's Arcadia brands.
During November last year JD Sports held talks to acquire Debenhams but pulled out as its largest concessionaire Arcadia fell into administration. Debenhams then entered liquidation proceedings and the brand and website was acquired by the Boohoo Group, though its 118 stores are set to close for good.
JD was also linked to a potential purchase of the Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands via a joint bid with US group Authentic Brands, but the pair were outbid by online group ASOS, which announced at the start of the week that it had bought the flagship brands, though, again, not their stores.
