JD Sports & ASOS battle VS Greek woes

The FashionUnited Top 100 Index closed up Tuesday, securing the

1278.43 thanks to a last minute gain of 2.22 points. The announcement of JD Sports Fashion expanding into Spain helped the international fashion benchmark index to keep on climbing.

JD Sports Fashion has bought a slice of Spanish chain Sprinter and Moss Bros’s eight Cecil Gee stores. The company now has holds 50.1 per cent of Sprinter, which include 47 shops in the Andalusia and Levante regions.

Talking numbers, JD Sports has invested €20m (£17.7m) into Sprinter through a subscription for shares. The retailer bought the Cecil Gee’s stores from Moss Group for £1.7m.  It said it will continue to trade these stores under the Cecil Gee name.  “We are very pleased to announce these two acquisitions, which both result from our strategy of selectively expanding our European retail presence and increasing our exposure to a broader portfolio of premium brands,” said JD Sports chairman Peter Cowgill.

Still in the UK, Next was falling since Friday, when the British retailer Next PLC (NXT.LN), a retail operator of fashion accessories and home wares, said Friday that it purchased 131,344 of its ordinary shares for cancellation at a price of 2185.7373 pence per share. Following the purchase, the Company's registered share capital consists of 173,314,787 ordinary shares of 10 pence each.

Good news on ASOS, as the online retailer pioneered the virtual queues: despite its sale door doesn't open until Tuesday 21thJune, at 9am on the 16th June the queue opened and within the first 24 hours there were already 27,000 in line, signalling that the high street is officially digital.

Far away, in Hong Kong, Prada´s final price rocketed the Italian luxury label to premium of about 20 percent to Burberry and LVMH, providing a big boost to the Hong Kong exchange's hopes of luring more international issuers. Together with the $1.25 billion listing of US luggage maker Samsonite International, Prada's IPO has driven international interest in Hong Kong listings to fever-pitch.