December 13 (SeeNews) - Slovenia’s largest hardware goods retailer Merkur plans to raise its group sales to 1.29 billion euro ($1.88 billion) next year on the back of strong investment in the expansion of its network at home and abroad, it said on Thursday.
Merkur has projected group net sales of 247 billion tolars (1.03billion euro) for the current year. Slovenia switched to the euro from its tolar currency on January 1 at a conversion rate of 239.64 tolars per euro.
“If plans for 2008 are fulfilled, Merkur group's sales revenue should amount to 1.29 billion euro and exceed sales in 2007,” the company said in a s statement but did not elaborate.
Under its strategic development plan until 2012, next year Merkur intends to start preparations for the construction of 20 shopping centres in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia.
“More than 200 million euro will be invested in construction of new 90,000 square metres of sales surface,” it said.
Merkur raised its group net profit for the first nine months of 2007 by 44.3% on the year to 12.67 million euro ($18.5 million). Group sales through September rose by 20.7% year-on-year to 848.5 million euro.
Merkur’s shares, included in the broader 15- share index of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, SBI20, added 0.25% to an average price of 395.00 euro on Thursday.
($ = 0.6849 euro)