Poland-based Eurocash Group has said that its consolidated net sales for the third quarter of 2017 stood at PLN 6.2 billion (€1.47 billion), which represents a 7% increase on the same period last year.
EBITDA stood at PLN 101 million for the period (2016: PLN 123 million).
For the first three quarters of the year, consolidated revenue totalled close to PLN 17.5 billion, up 10% on the preceding year, while EBITDA was down 8% to PLN 259 million.
Eurocash said that the lower EBITDA resulted from a ‘decline in profitability in the Cash & Carry format and the cigarette and impulse product distribution segment, as well as continued investments in the development of innovative retail formats and a fresh product distribution project’.
Retail Sales Up
In the group’s Retail business, sales in the first three quarters exceeded PLN 1.6 billion, and reached PLN 561 million in the third quarter alone, more than double the figure for the same period last year.
“The key driver of the dynamic sales growth in the retail segment is the acquisitions completed at the end of 2016 and start of 2017, especially the acquisition of nearly 250 EKO supermarkets,” commented said Jacek Owczarek, management board member and CFO at Eurocash Group.
“We are continuing to integrate these locations with Delikatesy Centrum so as to eventually build a nationwide supermarket chain, with a strong brand, including both franchise locations and our own stores.”
As of the end of the third quarter, Eurocash Group’s own retail business included 452 Inmedio outlets, 118 Delikatesy Centrum stores and 227 EKO stores (including the 37 that were rebranded as Delikatesy Centrum).
‘Strategic Significance’
Owczarek added that the development of the group’s retail business has a “strategic significance for the future of Eurocash Group and our clients.
“They will be the beneficiaries of the solutions that we will develop in our own stores, in the context of both logistics and marketing as well as appropriate scale, which will allow us to negotiate competitive purchasing terms and in effect to successfully compete together against the discounters.”
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
