Finance Notes: JD Sports Plans To Combine Spanish, Portuguese Business With Sport Zone

British sports retailer JD Sports "announced plans to combine its Spanish and Portuguese business with local company Sport Zone, in a plan to create the second-largest sports retailer in Iberia." JD Group will own 50% of a new "Iberian Sports Retail Group," with a further 20% held by the family shareholders of JD Sprinter, the Spanish business in which it bought a controlling stake in '11. The remaining 30% will be held by Portuguese retail group Sonae (FINANCIAL TIMES, 3/9).

Sportswear retail company Sports Direct "kicked off a process to appoint a worker representative on its board, five months after it agreed to do so following a backlash about its working conditions." The company said that an assessment process had started to find a candidate, "who would then be voted on by the company's 23,000 staff" (London TELEGRAPH, 3/9).