Forecourt retailer Applegreen has posted a 73% year-on-year growth in group revenue to €1.5 billion in the first half of its financial year.
Its gross profit increased 145% year-on-year, to €268.0, in the first six months.
The group's pre-IFRS 16 adjusted EBITDA grew 204% to €58.9 million during the period from €19.4 last year.
Its pre-tax adjusted profit amounted to €23.7 million, up 132.4% from €10.2 million in the first half of 2018.
The company saw like-for-like revenue growth of 5% in its non-fuel division, while like-for-like profits grew 6.0% at constant currency.
Like-for-like fuel revenue grew 8.4% during the first half with a gross profit of 14.3% at constant currency.
'Strong Growth'
Applegreen CEO, Bob Etchingham, commented, "Like-for-like revenue and profits from the underlying Applegreen estate, excluding Welcome Break, continued to show strong growth, [while] significant progress was made on the integration of the Welcome Break business acquired in the UK in Q4 last year.
"The delivery of anticipated synergy benefits is firmly on track and we see the opportunity for greater savings than originally expected going forward."
In November of last year, Applegreen acquired a controlling stake in UK motorway service and hotels operator, Welcome Break.
Recently, the company acquired a leasehold interest in forecourt retail assets of Lehigh Gas Wholesale, CrossAmerica Partners and a number of their affiliates, in the US Midwest.
Outlook
"Our primary focus in the immediate term remains the delivery of further synergy benefits from Welcome Break, which we now expect to be significantly larger than our previous expectation, and the integration of recent US acquisitions, [while] continuing on the deleveraging trajectory for the Group," Etchingham added.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
