Germany's Praktiker 9-mo Sales Fall 20.2% in Bulgaria, Down 13.9% in Romania

The company's like-for-like decrease in sales was 20.1% in Bulgaria and 21.5% in Romania over the same period, Praktiker said in a statement on its website. Using like-for-like sales is a method of valuation that attempts to exclude any effects of expansion, acquisition, or other events that artificially enlarge the company's sales.

Prakitker said that sales in Romania "have improved over the first half year even if they continue to range distinctly below the corresponding prior-year levels", while in Bulgaria such a trend reversal is not observable yet.

"The international business, focused on East and South-East Europe, continues to be strongly affected by the repercussions of global recession, in a dual sense: negative exchange rate effects account for around two thirds of the decline in sales and almost 30% of the decline in EBITA. Consumer demand has become by far more sluggish than in Germany," Praktiker CEO Wolfgang Werner said in the same statement commenting on the company's nine-month results.

The group's total sales through September fell by an annual 5.0% to 2.864 billion euro.

Praktiker Group runs a network of 439 stores, of which 336 in Germany, 9 in Bulgaria, 26 in Romania and the rest in Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland, Ukraine and Turkey. It sells building materials, decorations, sanitary accessories, furniture, gardening products and home appliances.

($=0.6674 euro)