Do we like them?

Do we like JD Sports?

UK sportswear and trainers retailer (JD, Footasylum and other chains), based in Bury, Greater Manchester.

Our score: 4 out of 10. A big, successful retailer, but with a record of regulator fines for breaking competition and merger rules. Our searches found no recent evidence of good deeds, so we'd hold back for now.

JD Sports is the Bury-based trainers and sportswear chain that grew into a giant. It's listed on the London stock exchange. Peter Cowgill ran it for years before leaving in 2022 amid corporate governance concerns. Régis Schultz, ex-B&Q, was named to succeed him.

The big drama was the Footasylum takeover. In 2022 the UK competition regulator (the CMA) fined JD and Footasylum almost £5m for breaching its orders during the merger review. JD's share was £2.5m, plus a further £20,000 for obstructing the investigation.

There's more. The CMA fined JD £1.485m over replica football shirt price-fixing with Rangers FC and Elite Sports. In 2023 it also found JD and Leicester City FC broke competition law.

On workers and safety, a court fined JD £60,000 in 2017 over fire safety breaches at a Merry Hill store. In 2016 it launched its own investigation into working conditions, according to Channel 4 News. Those are old stories, but the competition fines are a pattern. That's why we land below the middle.