Bulgaria's Stara Planina Hold forecasts 30% fall in Q1 cons sales

The company's revenue dropped by 25.3% year-on-year in January-February, reaching 51.9 million levs, Stara Planina Hold said in a bourse filing on Friday. Last month, the group projected an annual decline of 28.5% in its sales in the first two months of 2024.

The total preliminary gross profit of the company's four main subsidiaries, including hydraulic equipment manufacturer M+S Hydraulic [BUL:MSH] and machine engineering company Hydraulic Elements and Systems [BUL:HES], totalled some 5.14 million levs in the review period. Battery manufacturer Elhim Iskra [BUL:ELHM] and cosmetics producer Bulgarian Rose [BUL:ROZA] posted preliminary losses in January-February.

Only Bulgarian Rose is projected to grow its sales revenue in the first quarter of this year, by an annual 31.4% to 958,000 levs. In contrast, M+S Hydraulic's sales are seen to drop by 38.6%, while HES' and Elhim Iskra's sales are expected to fall by 21.3% and 17.4%, respectively.

Shares in Stara Planina Hold last traded on March 21 when they closed at 10.20 levs on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, bourse data show.

(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)