JD Sports Fashion (JD.) has been crowned the best blue-chip stock of the past decade. Shares in the chain, which calls itself the ‘King of Trainers’ and sells brands including Nike and Adidas, have risen 3,200 per cent from around 25p at the start of 2010 to 832.2p last night. A saver who bought £1,000 of JD Sports shares ten years ago would now be sitting on £33,000. Someone who bought them at the turn of the century would now have an investment worth nearly £113,000. The performance is even more eye-catching given the crisis that has engulfed the High Street in recent years. While JD Sports shares have rocketed, other retailers have struggled amid fierce competition from online rivals. Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) was this year relegated from the FTSE 100 for the first time since the index was set up in 1984. Its shares are down 43% since 2010. And JD Sports, which has 2,420 stores and more than 50,000 staff in 19 countries, has left arch-rival in its wake. Shares in Sports Direct, which is led by Mike Ashley and which was recently renamed Frasers, have halved in value since peaking in 2014, although they are still nearly five times higher than at the start of the decade. Russ Mould, investment director at broker AJ Bell, said: ‘JD Sports is a great example of how retailers can still rise above all of the challenges thrown at them by changes in fashion, wage regulations and workers’ rights, and technology, to name but three.’ City commentator David Buik, of Core Spreads, said: ‘To keep producing results of this magnitude is extraordinary. ‘This group has gone from strength to strength, despite the ferocious competition from Sports Direct. JD Sports has focused on vogue brands, which have universal appeal.’ According to analysis by AJ Bell, the next biggest gains after JD Sports came from the equipment rental firm Ashtead Group (AHT), and the property website Rightmove (RMV), which delivered returns of 3,120% and 1,260% respectively. Mould said: ‘Such firms have been like gold dust for the past decade. The big question is, will they remain so?’ He said that only one stock in the top ten – the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) – started the decade as a FTSE 100 company. ‘In other words, if you are looking for the really big winners, you are probably better off by starting to look in the FTSE 250,’ he said. ‘This harks back to Jim Slater’s assertion that ‘elephants don’t gallop’. The established giants simply can’t grow fast enough to necessarily generate these sorts of returns.’ In the FTSE 250, marketing firm 4Imprint Group (FOUR) delivered the highest returns, at 2,950%. The second-biggest was from retailer Games Workshop, at 2,620%.
Around £33trillion could be wiped off the value of global stock markets because of climate change, according to one of Britain’s largest fund managers. Aviva Investors, which looks after £350billion of pensions and savings, said shares could fall by as much as 30% if global warming is not controlled. Businesses in the firing line include oil firms whose operations would be hit as governments and consumers demand cleaner energy. But the impact could be greater, because of damage to everything from food supplies to transport links caused by rising sea levels and disasters such as floods, droughts and fires. A collapse in share prices would hit the pensions and savings of millions of families all over the world.
The future is looking a little hazy for Big Dish (DISH), which wanted to be the next big thing in restaurants. Bigdish is developing an app which allows customers to get money off their food if they book a table at non-peak times. But in its half-year report, it said it had only enough funding to last until the third quarter of 2020. Boss Tom Sumner believes he can pull more restaurants on board, and said 2020 ‘will be a turnaround story’.
AstraZeneca (AZN) rounded off a stellar decade as it announced its lynparza ovarian cancer treatment has now been granted approval in the US to treat pancreatic cancer. The nod from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) marks the first time that a drug of this kind, which blocks the DNA repair mechanism so cancer cells fail to replicate, has been approved to treat the condition. This was the company’s second big win this month after another drug, to treat breast cancer, won FDA support four months ahead of schedule. Astrazeneca executive Dave Fredrickson said: ‘Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer historically faced poor outcomes due to the aggressive nature of the disease and limited treatment advances over the past few decades. Lynparza is now the only approved targeted medicine in biomarker-selected patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.’ The company is still up 163% over the past decade, compared to a 41% rise in the FTSE 100.
Centamin (DI) (CEY), which is being stalked by Canadian suitor Endeavour, propped up the mid-cap index as investors anticipated an increased bid. Endeavour made a £1.5billion approach for Centamin this month, but has been snubbed by the British miner, which claims it undervalues the company. Shareholders must endure another two weeks of wrangling before Endeavour will have to reveal, by January 14, whether it plans to increase its offer or not.
Bosses at Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) have raked in £1.2million after selling shares when the stock market opened after Christmas. Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief operating officer Juan Colombas and chief risk officer Stephen Shelley sold 1.8m shares in the bank last Friday, filings revealed yesterday. Colombas cashed in the most, selling 1m shares for £630,000. He still owns a stake in the bank worth £6.8million. Horta-Osorio, 55, who some predict will leave in the next year, flogged 782,045 shares for £492,688. He also bought 31,426 shares into an ISA in his name, while Ana bought 31,436 into her ISA for £39,779. Horta-Osorio’s remaining 0.03% stake is now worth £13million. Over the course of 2019, he has cashed in shares worth £4.9million. This comes on top of his £1.3million base salary for the year, his £1.1million of fixed share awards, £419,000 pension, £157,000 of benefits and maximum £5million of performance-based rewards.
