JD Sports sells Footasylum in cut-price deal

Retailer JD Sports is selling its Footasylum sports shoe chain to German investment group Aurelius, taking a hefty loss on a deal that was retrospectively blocked by the UK's competition regulator. In its final year as a listed company, it reported sales of £194mn and adjusted earnings, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, of £12.5mn. JD acquired Footasylum in April 2019. The two companies were well known to each other: Footasylum's backers, John Makin and David Wardle, were the original founders of JD Sports and its chief executive Barry Bown had previously held the same role at JD. However, Footasylum had run into financial difficulty and warned on profits several times in its final months as a listed company. Bown said at the time that the JD takeover was "The best strategic option for Footasylum and its employees" while then JD boss Peter Cowgill mentioned "Significant operational and strategic benefits". During the investigations and the subsequent sale process, Footasylum was to be run at arm's length from JD Sports.

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