JJB Sports

British sports retailer company

The original JJB sportshop was founded in the beginning of the 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 supermarket in Sutton, St Helens. 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 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. In September 2008, JJB released a less than impressive set of interim results, which included a warning from the auditors raising doubts over JJB's future as a going concern. In October 2008, the value of JJB shares fell to less than 10% of the value, at the time of Dave Whelan's share sale to Chris Ronnie and Exista. This was partly in response to the interim financial report, and also as a result of Coface removing credit insurance. This was from debts owed by JJB to their suppliers. Three weeks later, a 34% share was purchased by Sports Direct. On 10 February 2009, JJB put their Qube and Original Shoe Company subsidiaries into administration, after failing to find a buyer. By the end of the week, the group secured a reprieve from its bankers to avoid putting the whole group into administration. On 13 October 2009, JJB admitted that former executives were being investigated by both HM Revenue & Customs and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

JJB was one of many companies that had undergone major restructuring and change due to the recession and faced a £31.5 million debt, the closure of 95 stores and a possible hostile takeover by one of its top rivals, JD Sports, as of February 2011. The firm attempted to raise £65 million in finances from its investors on 7 April 2011. In February 2011, JJB revealed that as many as 95 of its stores faced closure within the next two years, and had asked for emergency £31.5m funding on 11 December 2011.

The combined fiscal value of JJB Sports' shares had totaled £500 million in 2010, but had unpredictably collapsed to only £1.2 million by September 2012. It was reported that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was to lose millions of dollars from this outcome, following its investment in JJB Sports in 2009. On 1 October 2012, it was announced that rival retailer Sports Direct had purchased the 'JJB' brand name, website and 20 stores, saving around 550 jobs. However, the remaining 160 stores were to close, resulting in 2,200 redundancies. JJB Sports was officially dissolved, with debts of £150 million on 9 November 2012. There were a total of 5,000 employees at its closure. Sir David Jones, Which? consumer magazine issued proceedings against JJB Sports to sue the high street retailer for damages on behalf of consumers who were affected by the price fixing.

The business operated approximately sixty health & fitness centres all over the United Kingdom, which became property of DW Sports Fitness after Dave Whelan's departure from JJB. JJB also ran health and fitness centres in the Republic of Ireland, which are now operated by Sports Direct, following the liquidation of the company.