JD Sports defends board member and former Amazon director despite shareholder worries about ‘poor attendance’
JD Sports has said it is satisfied with the performance of a former Amazon director to its board, after shareholders voiced concerns about their “perceived” poor attendance.
Last summer, some 21 per cent of shareholders voted to not allow Mahbobeh Sabetnia re-join to the board at its last annual meeting. The non-executive director replaced Heather Jackson back in 2021 after a six year tenure.
At the time, the Bury-headquartered sportswear giant said that a “significant number” of votes were cast by independent shareholders against the former Amazon and McDonald’s executive.
JD Sports said this morning that it believed the votes against Mahbobeh were based on a poor attendance record at remuneration meetings – a poor attendance record that it says unfairly presented the real situation.
A statement read: “It is the board’s belief that the votes on this resolution were influenced by a perceived low attendance of Mahbobeh at Remuneration Committee meetings.
“The board can confirm that this perception was not correct. Her appointment was only for part of the year in question and during that time there was only one meeting of the Remuneration Committee.”
It added: “This meeting was convened at short notice and she was unable to attend due to a pre-existing meeting.”
JD Sports went on to say that it is “satisfied” with Mahbobeh’s performance and her attendance at Remuneration Committee meetings has been 100 per cent so far this financial year.
It comes weeks after the ‘king of trainers’ downgraded its profit forecasts for the current financial year due to higher discounting in its stores and reduced customer spending.