Breakfast briefing: Retail news on Sports Direct, Hobbs and more

Sports Direct plans sale of its brands

Sports Direct is planning to sell its tired brands as it strives to become “the Selfridges of sports retail”, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Dunlop was sold for £112m to Sumitomo Rubber Industries last month.

Sources suggest that Everlast, Lonsdale and Kangol could be next on the list.

Sports Direct owns 28 sports and lifestyle brands in total.

Hobbs put up for sale

Hobbs is likely to be put up for sale by 3i for as much as £80m, The Times reported.

3i acquired Hobbs for £111m in 2004 and is now close to hiring NM Rothschild to handle the sale.

Hobbs, which has 140 stores in the UK and Ireland, made a profit of £1.4m on sales of £104.4m.

However, 3i is expected to make a loss on its investment.

Supermarkets report solid Christmas trading

Shares in Tesco and Morrisons increased 38% and 55% respectively owing to solid Christmas trading, Reuters reported.

Aldi and Lidl faced a slowdown in sales growth.

Kantar Worldpanel is expected to report weak Asda sales for the 12 weeks to January 1.

The share price of Sainsbury’s was held back owing to the uncertainty over its acquisition of Argos.

Tesco is expected to report UK like-for-like sales growth of 1.25% to 2% for its third quarter to November 26, and growth of 0.6% to 1.5% for the six weeks to January 7.

Morrisons is expected to report sales growth of 1.1% for the nine weeks to January 1.

Online retailers expected to report rise in sales

Asos and Boohoo are expected to report sales growth of 30% and 40% respectively, This is Money reported.

Owing to the current rate of growth, Boohoo is expected to exceed sales of £250m, while Asos is ending its financial year with close to £2bn in sales.

M&S is expected to report a 0.2% rise in like-for-like clothing sales for its third quarter.