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Bloomberg
JD Sports Fashion Plc fell 12% in early London trading after announcing executive chairman Peter Cowgill is stepping down with immediate effect.
The move comes just a few months after the British retailer was fined nearly $6.3 million by the country’s antitrust regulator. JD Sports said Helen Ashton, chair of the audit and risk committee, will become interim non-executive chair. Kath Smith, senior independent director, will become interim chief executive officer, according to a statement. Searches for a permanent chair and CEO are underway.
The move comes about three months after JD Sports was fined by the Competition and Markets Authority for sharing commercially sensitive information and breaching an order relating to its proposed merger with smaller rival Footasylum Plc. JD Sports agreed to buy Footasylum in 2019 for 86 million pounds but the deal was blocked by the CMA over competition concerns. The two companies were ordered not to exchange sensitive information without prior consent.
The regulator said two meetings that Cowgill held with Barry Bown, his counterpart at Footaslyum, including one in a parking lot, breached the ruling that barred the two merged companies from integrating further, pending the outcome of the competition investigation.