City blast for Sports Direct
Sport Direct fails to make basic financial disclosures in its latest market announcement again and reveals that it has yet to appoint a full-time chairman
The City panned embattled retailer
Sports
Direct this week, after the company once again failed to make basic
financial disclosures in its latest market announcement and revealed that it had
yet to appoint a full-time chairman.
Analysts and investors were furious as the company, led by controversial
founder Mike Ashley, failed to disclose any like-for-like sales information in
an interim statement that was released on the same day as its AGM.
The company only disclosed that ‘total sales of the group for the 13 weeks
ending 29 July 2007 amounted to £335m and a corresponding group gross profit of
£149m’ but offered no like-for-like sales data or any other comparatives, the
bare minimum required by investors and analysts.
There was also widespread anger at the slow progress that the company has
made in finding a replacement for former chairman David Richardson, who quit the
role in June.
Interim chairman Simon Bentley said a search was underway, but that the
appointment would only be made by Christmas time rather than October as the
business had originally promised.