// JD Sports has been crowned the best blue-chip stock of the past decade
// Shares have risen by 3200%
// The retailer entered the FTSE 100 earlier this year
JD Sports shares have risen by 3200 per cent from 25 per cent at the beginning of the decade.
The sports retailer entered the FTSE 100 earlier this year after a period of surging sales bucked the downbeat trend among rival retailers.
It had eyed an expansion through the proposed acquisition of rival Footasylum for £90 million, but the move has been stalled by an ongoing investigation by CMA.
READ MORE: £90m Footasylum takeover will “benefit” customers, JD Sports says
The rise in shares means that a saver who bought £1000 of JD Sports shares in 2010 would now be sitting on £33,000.
JD Sports now has 2420 stores worldwide and a stock market value in excess of £8 billion, making it worth almost twice as much as Marks & Spencer.
M&S was relegated from the FTSE 100 earlier this year for the first time since the index was set up in 1984.
Its shares are down 43 per cent since 2010.
JD Sports, which has more than 50,000 staff in 19 countries, has left arch-rival Sports Direct in its wake.
Shares in Sports Direct, which is led by billionaire Mike Ashley, have halved in value since peaking in 2014.
JD Sports’ biggest shareholder is Pentland Group, which owns a 55 per cent stake having acquired shares from Wardle and Makin in 2005.
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