German Metro managed to stabilize its first quarter profit compared to last year, despite a setback in Russia. It mainly cut costs in its Real restructuring plan.
High net profit
It generated a first quarter turnover of 10.1 billion euro, about as much as last year’s first quarter. There was a 0.8 % like-for-like turnover growth, but its Russian like-for-like turnover plummeted 8.9 %. Every other region established growth, like a 2 % increase in Germany. Metro Wholesale performed best, with a 1 % like-for-like turnover increase and Real’s like-for-like turnover remained stable.
Despite the weaker Russian performance, Metro managed to steady its EBITDA at 608 million euro, but its Russian EBITDA dropped 11 % to 108 million euro. Net profit grew 124 million euro to 232 million euro, which is an 87.8 % increase. These decent profit numbers are thanks to a lack of restructuring costs for Real and other one-time income.
“We have had a solid quarter in a challenging market”, Metro chairman Olaf Koch previously said. “The group’s first quarter turnover aligned with our our full-year forecast.
