It may turn out to be one of the most expensive telephone calls never made.
JJB Sports yesterday was reduced to little more than a laughing stock - and its shares lost more than £120 million in value - as the sports chain revealed that an oversight by its former finance director had almost forced one of its banks to call in a loan critical to the health of the business.
In a day that lurched from panic to chaos to pure comedy, JJB said that HBOS had threatened to walk away after David Greenwood, a former finance director, forgot to tell the bank in April that the retailer may have breached one of the covenants on an £18 million loan.
Serves the "old bugger" right!
The sports company also recorded a six month loss of 10 million pounds, compared to a profit last year for the same period.
JJB Sports has slumped to a loss blaming the "worst retail recession" it has ever known.
The retailer and health clubs group posted a £9.7m ($18m) loss for the six months to the end of July against an£8.3m profit at the same time in 2007.
The loss came as sales fell 5.6% to £344.7m at JJB. Two newly acquired businesses also made losses.
i saw that jjb shares had dropped 60% on business lunch yesterday (had a day off work and was bored)- this explains why.
i'm still in the dark whether mr whelan actually holds many shares in jjb anymore though- if he does then it shows that karma must exist (or that some jjb executives are almost as usless as some wigan rl seem to be).
it made me giggle whelan's comments about mike ashley saying to the extent that he was a good retailer but poor chairman at newcastle...perhaps dave, but he has made more money than you in a far shorter period of time > m ashley £1,398m, d whelan and family £200m (source times rich list 08). :tong1:
NOBLE OUT PLEASE- YOU'VE HAD TIME AND NOW MY PATIENCE HAS RUN OUT!
IT'S ONE THING TO LOSE, IT'S ANOTHER TO PLAY DIRE AND BORING RL AND THEN LOSE!
I find the advert at the bottom of this thread quite hilarious: JD Sports
Ashley has done well hence massive profits, the only problem with Sports Direct is they went onto the markets and had no clue what to do so they got shafted. But i can say a few JJB stores have since closed (as we know) and profits at SD.com stores local to them have increased by as much as 25% weekly.
So, if JJB go bust sometime in the future, new stadium name change?
JJB was never a particularly popular sports store when I was growing up. It never embraced the sports casual look of the early 80's and was the 'Greenwoods' of sports retailing. However, the football shirt fashion of the 90's catapulted them into the big time. Luck or by design? They never seemed to respond to that downturn in that fasdhion and were/are back to where they were in the 80's but with far more outlets with expensive rents.
I think under Whelan they tried to develop into Europe but ended up back tracking.
There was also the human tragedy of Whelan's son in law.
the-Bowtun-Warr ior wrote:whelan could buy jjb's back at over half the price that he sold it for. . . .
Currently.
The question to be asked is - Would you? given their current financial trading difficulties. It would be like using the finest wine as a toilet cleaner!
