November 7 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's largest food retailer Mercator on Wednesday reported a 69.2% annual rise in group net profit for the first nine months of the year, to 36.1 million euro ($52 million), as sales also increased.
Group net sales through September rose by 19.3% on the year to 1.75 billion euro, the company said in its financial reported to the the Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE). Group pre-tax profit rose by 50.7% year-on-year to 44.7 million euro.
"Net profit of the Mercator group in the first nine months of this year also includes extraordinary profits related to the disposal of business and financial assets," the company said. Excluding the effect of the extraordinary profits, the comparable group profit before taxes through September was 25.1 % higher than in the year-ago period.
Parent net profit rose by 2.0% year-on-year to 24.19 million euro while net sales were up 4.4% to 1.24 billion euro.
Shares in blue chip Mercator added 0.01% to an average price of 350.03 euro in morning trade on the LJSE on Wednesday.
($ = 0.69 euro)