JD Sports owner John David Group today said it was continuing to review all its options after revealing an 80% drop in pre-tax profits to £2.1 million.

The sportswear retailer said the year to January proved to be very difficult as it struggled to integrate the 209-strong chain of First Sport stores into the business.

While its core sports business was "increasingly robust", the group's fashion business arm continued to disappoint, JD said.

It said its optimism in October last year about the second half was not justified due to patchy trading in the final quarter.

The fall in pre-tax profits after goodwill and one-off items came against a figure of £10.8 million in the 10 months to January 31 last year.

The group's executive chairman and former finance director Peter Cowgill, who returned to the firm after the departure of previous executive chairman Roger Best in March, said an ongoing review of the business would take some time to complete.

"We will announce its findings and conclusions as soon as it is practicable," Mr Cowgill said.

The group, based in Heywood, Lancashire, has 8,500 staff working in 359 stores under the JD Sports, Athleisure, Open, Nike and Size? brands.

It bought the First Sport store chain in May 2002 and is rebranding its 209 outlets as JD Sports.

The company said the JD Sports business would drive its future performance.

The sports store chain continued to be recognised as a style leader by its target teenage market and offered a market leading range from suppliers including Adidas, Nike, Puma and Lacoste, as well as own brands McKenzie and Carbrini.

Despite the weak pre-Christmas period, there were now grounds for optimism, with the core sports business performing well in the new year, the group said.

JD said it was addressing problems in its fashion business by reducing the number of brand names and developing stronger relationships with fewer suppliers.

The group said its trading since the year end had been in line with management expectations, although the fashion fascias business would take some time to recover from some of its buying decisions in the past year.

In the 13 weeks to May 1, group like-for-like sales rose 0.9% while the core sports business increased 2.5%.

The total dividend to shareholders was maintained at 6.5p.

Tuesday May 11, 2004