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Can JD Sports win in a market littered with UK takeover failures?

It's been a stupendous growth story in its domestic UK market - and now JD Sports is hoping to achieve similar success in the United States.

The UK's largest sportswear retailer today announced it is buying The Finish Line (NasdaqGS: FINL - news) , one of America's biggest sports footwear and clothing retailers, for $558m (£396m).

It is by far the biggest acquisition by the company since it was founded in 1981 from a single sports shop in Bury trading under the name John David Sports.

Peter Cowgill, JD's executive chairman, said: "This is a landmark day for JD and will be transformational for the business."

Finish Line, which is listed on Nasdaq (Frankfurt: 813516 - news) , employs 3,700 full time staff and around 9,300 part-time staff. It trades from 556 stores across 44 US states and Puerto Rico and is also the only retailer of sports shoes, both in-store and online, at the Macy's department store chain in the US.

Unusually, given that announcements like this are usually greeted with a drop in the share price of the acquirer, the City has largely welcomed the news.

There appears to be widespread acceptance among investors that, in order to call itself a genuinely global player, JD - which already trades out of numerous countries in mainland Europe, Asia and Australia - had to enter the world's biggest sportswear market at some point.

What seems to have gone down particularly well is that JD does not appear to be betting the farm.

Jonathan Pritchard, retail analyst at stockbroker Peel Hunt, called it a "sensible deal at a sensible price".

He said: "The deal looks a sensibly-priced entry point into a market that JD must embrace to be considered a genuinely global player. The deal will doubtless enhance its relationships with the big manufacturers, especially Nike (Sao Paolo: NIKE34.SA - news) , which represents 71% of Finish Line's sales."

Mr Pritchard estimates JD is buying Finish Line for 6 times its cash flow, compared with the 8 times cash flow at which the market values JD itself.

Kate Calvert, of broker Investec (LSE: INVP.L - news) , added: "The valuation looks undemanding for an attractive double digit international growth story."

Clive Black, retail analyst at broker Shore Capital, said: "The deal is in line with [JD's] well-established focus of acquiring businesses which have relevance to the company's core strength and the capability of enhancing profitability."

If there is a reason for unease, though, it is this: the US has traditionally been a graveyard for UK retailers.

One of the most notorious examples was in 1988, when Marks & Spencer (Frankfurt: 534418 - news) paid $750m for Brooks Brothers, the gent's outfitter famous for its preppy look.

The architect of that deal was Lord Rayner but it was not long before his successor, Sir Richard Greenbury, was admitting that M&S had overpaid. The business was eventually offloaded for just $225m in 2001 and, over its 13 years of ownership, Brooks Brothers is reckoned to have cost M&S something approaching $1bn.

It was 1988 when M&S bought Kings Supermarkets, a US grocery retailer, for $108m. It was sold in 2006 for $61.5m.

More recently, Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) has suffered a horrific setback in the US, where in 2007 it opened a chain of stores called Fresh & Easy. At the time, Tesco seemingly had the world at its feet, dominating UK retail like no other business before or since.

By the time it offloaded the chain in 2013, Fresh & Easy was reckoned to have cost it at least $1.2bn, although the ultimate cost was in reality probably far higher because of the distraction the business created for Tesco management.

Another to come unstuck was Dixons which, in 1987, bought Philadelphia-based Silo for £240m. It proved unable to compete with rivals like Best Buy (Swiss: BBY.SW - news) and Circuit City and racked up almost as much in losses before, six years later, Dixons threw in the towel and sold it for $50m.

Other British retailers to have got their fingers burned over the years in the US include Habitat, Laura Ashley (LSE: ALY.L - news) , Sock Shop and The Body Shop.

JD, which overtook Mike Ashley's Sports Direct some years ago to become the number one player in the sportswear market, is unlikely to suffer anything like such disasters.

Mr Cowgill and his management team have a fantastic track record and are not exactly known for taking risks unduly.