Sports Direct on hunt for London mega-site after office sale

LONDON, May 7 (Reuters) - Sports Direct, Britain's biggest sporting goods retailer, is on the hunt for a new central London site to house a superstore, own-brand gym and offices, after making a big profit on the sale of its existing office this week.

The firm, founded and majority controlled by Newcastle United (Shenzhen: 000925.SZ - news) owner Mike Ashley, said on Thursday it had sold its office on New Cavendish Street, central London to the University of Westminster for 44 million pounds ($67 million), having paid 30 million pounds for it in 2007.

It has now hired agents to find it a prime London site capable of housing a 100,000 square foot development.

As part of a push to afford more space to key products from the likes of Adidas (Other OTC: ADDDF - news) and Nike (Sao Paolo: NIKE34.SA - news) alongside its own brands Sports Direct has been improving and expanding some of its large city stores.

Last year it also marked its entrance into the health and fitness industry with a deal to buy a handful of LA fitness clubs, which it has rebranded Sports Direct Fitness.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in the company, which is headquartered in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, central England, are down 20 percent on a year ago to 621 pence.

($1 = 0.6567 pounds) (Reporting by Neil Maidment; editing by James Davey)