JJB Sports
Final logo (2006)
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| Subsidiary (Defunct) | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Founded | early 1900s |
| Founder | JJ Broughton |
| Defunct | 1 October 2012 |
| Headquarters | Pemberton, near Wigan, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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David Williams (CEO & CFO) Keith Jones (Chairman) |
| Products | Clothing, sportswear, sports equipment |
| Revenue | £284.2 million (2011) |
| £(103.5) million | |
| £(101.1) million | |
| Website | JJB Sports Online |
JJB Sports plc (stylized as JJb sports) was a British sports retailer. On 24 September 2012, shares in JJB Sports were suspended, and the firm called in administrators. On 1 October 2012, it was announced that Sports Direct had purchased part of the business, including twenty stores, the brand, and its website for £28.3 million.
The original JJB sportshop was founded in the early 1900s. It was expanded and incorporated in 1971, when ex-footballer and supermarket chain operator Dave Whelan acquired a single sports shop in Wigan and immediately opened a second sports goods outlet in his Sutton, St Helens, supermarket. The original JJB sports store was established by John Jarvis Broughton in the early 1900s and later was purchased by John Joseph Bradburn. As these initials were all the same the business was known locally as JJB's. When Whelan bought the store from Bradburn, he kept the JJB name
During the early 1990s, the store portfolio grew to stores totalling 120 by 1994, at which point the company was floated on the . In 1998, JJB bought its largest domestic competitor Sports Division. The acquisition made JJB one of the largest sports retailers in the United Kingdom, focusing on sports clothing rather than sports equipment. It had got to a sales total of £372.97 million (US$636.60 million) in 1999.
In July 2002, it had also opened a new branch in Amsterdam. In October 2002, Duncan Sharpe, chief executive of JJB Sports, committed suicide. Mr Sharpe had been with the company for nineteen years, and was the son in law of the chairman, Dave Whelan.
By 2005, JJB had expanded to stores over 430 throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. On 8 June 2007, Mr Whelan sold his residual 29% stake in the firm for £190 million to Icelandic financial group Exista and Chris Ronnie, a sports retailer who previously worked at Umbro and Sports Direct.
On 19 October 2007, JJB bought a stake of 10.1% in Umbro, in an move to protect its stake in the market for shirts of England football. This stake was sold in its entirety to Nike in March 2008. In December 2007, JJB announced that they had purchased the Original Shoe Company for £5 million. JJB considered converting some of the smaller JJB High Street stores into OSC stores, keeping OSC as a separate division of the JJB group which would share JJB's buying, financing and marketing functions.
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Wikipedia