JD Sports dips toe into Footasylum with 8.3% stake

(Sharecast News) - JD Sports has bought an 8.3% stake in fellow sports shop chain Footasylum and said it was looking to buy more. Footasylum was founded by David Makin and John Wardle in 2005, the year they walked away from the JD Sports business they had founded 20 years beforehand.As it confirmed the purchase of 8.7m Footasylum shares, JD said on Monday that it had acquired the stake "for investment purposes" and that it was "prepared" to hoover up more shares up to total 29.9%, while also adding that "is not intending to make an offer for Footasylum".Under its executive chairman Peter Cowgill, who was appointed in 2004, JD has gone from strength to strength, with its shares rocketing more than tenfold higher over the last five years to gain a place on the FTSE 250 indexc.