LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), May 28 (SeeNews) – Slovenian retailer Mercator [LJE:MELR] said on Thursday it turned to a consolidated net profit of 1.1 million euro ($1.2 million) in the first quarter of 2020, from a consolidated loss of 3.7 million euro in the like period of 2019.
Consolidated sales revenue rose 11% on the year to 530 million euro in January-March, while revenue from retail sales was up 14% to 432 million euro, Mercator said in a statement with the Ljubljana bourse.
Its normalised EBITDA went up by an annual 11% to 44 million euro in the first three months of the year.
"Positive performance trends regarding revenue, EBITDA and net income are a result of successful execution of the business strategy and all 125 initiatives of our value-creation plan implemented in all markets of the Group's operations," the head of Mercator's management board, Tomislav Cizmic, said in the statement.
"Early in the 2020 fiscal year, we identified a strong trend of solid business performance and profitability. Only timely and responsible preparation for the changes following the declaration of epidemic allowed Mercator Group to sustain the positive performance trends," Cizmic added.
The group's total assets shrank 3.8% on the year to 1.98 billion euro at the end of March.
The number of employees fell 1% to 20,042, with half of them employed in Slovenia and the other half in the company's units in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia.
Mercator's shares last traded on the Ljubljana bourse on May 21, closing at 15.10 euro, bourse data showed.
($=0.907436 euro)
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