It is not often that the broadsheets get the wrong end of the stick, but it seems that a report in the Sunday Telegraph which claimed that Sports Direct was running down stock in certain House of Fraser stores, ahead of closing them, was ill-founded.
In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Sports Direct stated: “the Telegraph article refers to ‘fresh papers’ from administrators EY’ which is the progress report for the administration of HFL Realisations Limited (formerly House of Fraser Limited, which went into administration in 2018. This refers to a number of leased being surrendered for £nil.” The retail group went on to explain that this has nothing to do with the Sports Direct Group and that it has entered into new leases on the majority of House of Fraser stores, adding that it continues to work with landlords across the whole of the remaining House of Fraser estate.
“As a result of this erroneous misreading of the administrator’s report from EY, staff across the HoF group have today woken up to a false sense of job insecurity. Sports Direct is working rapidly on our ongoing investment programme with the HoF brand and it is therefore totally incorrect to assume that there will be large numbers of store closures in the new year. We are taking legal advice with regards to this unbelievable level of misreporting.”
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