Less food, more electronics
The German group has ended its short fiscal year 2013 at the end of September with a small
growth. Metro Cash & Carry sales dropped 2 % to 22.6 billion euro. That includes Makro UK’s sale to Booker,
because if that chain is excluded, sales were “largely on last year’s level”, says Metro Group.
Hypermarket subsidiary Real lowered its
turnover 8.3 %, reaching 7.3 billion euro. The drop can be attributed to disinvestments in Ukraine
(from 1 March), Russia (from 1 April) and Romania (from 1 September). Despite “challenging European market conditions”, Metro Group’s electronics
section managed a slight increase in turnover: Media-Saturn grew 0.6 % (to 14.4 billion euro) and Galeria Kaufhof kept its turnover almost level at
2.1 billion euro.
“Mission accomplished”
“We have delivered what we promised in the short financial year 2013. We reached our sales projections and confirmed
our EBIT expectations”, said Olaf Koch, Metro’s chief executive. Metro Group had
previously announced a “slightly elevated” EBIT, compared to last year’s (which
was 7.06 million euro).
Metro Group had 2,221 stores on 30
September, 22 less than at the end of 2012. The past 9 months, it opened 34
stores and closed another 56.
