Bulgaria's Stara Planina Hold forecasts 33% drop in H1 cons sales

The company's revenue slid by 31.5% on the year in the first five months of this year, reaching 117.9 million levs, Stara Planina Hold said in a bourse filing. Last month, the group forecast an annual fall of 31.6% in its sales in January-May.

The total preliminary gross profit of the company's four main subsidiaries, including hydraulic equipment manufacturer M+S Hydraulic [BUL:MSH], machine engineering company Hydraulic Elements and Systems [BUL:HES] and cosmetics producer Bulgarian Rose [BUL:ROZA], totalled some 8.27 million levs in the review period as battery manufacturer Elhim Iskra [BUL:ELHM] recorded a preliminary loss.

Only Bulgarian Rose is projected to grow its sales revenue in the first half of this year, by an annual 31.9% to 2.37 million levs. In contrast, M+S Hydraulic's sales are seen to drop by 42.8%, while HES' and Elhim Iskra's sales are expected to go down 22.4% and 16.2%, respectively.

Shares in Stara Planina Hold last traded on June 13 when they closed at 10.0842 levs on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, bourse data show.

(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)