Slovenia's Mercator 9-mo net profit shrinks to 6.2 mln euro

Consolidated revenue rose 1.6% on the year to 1.64 billion euro, while earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose to 48 million euro in the first nine months, from 35.8 million euro in the same period of last year, Mercator said in a filing to the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.

The Mercator Group's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) totalled 130.5 million euro in the January-September period. In the like period of the preceding year EBITDA amounted to 79.9 million euro, according to the data.

"Clear strategy through which Mercator stresses cooperation with local and regional suppliers, new commercial platforms, and new innovative retail concepts focusing on convenient store formats have improved Mercator's competitiveness and have evidently yielded solid business results," president of the management board at Mercator Group, Tomislav Cizmic, said.

In the first nine months of 2019, Mercator's investment into property, plant, and equipment (CAPEX) amounted to 18.5 million euro. Of the total investment amount, 64.7% was used for investments in Slovenia and 35.3% was used for investments in international markets.

Investment into refurbishment and rearrangements of existing units accounted for 45.7% of total investments; investments into distribution centres accounted for 20.9%; IT investments accounted for 14.0%; expansion of new retail units represented 12.9%; and the remaining 6.5% was invested in non-trade activities.

Capital expenditures of the Mercator Group in the period under review totalled 18.5 million euro, down 3.2% on the year.

($=0.9077 euro)