CALDEIRÃO DE BOLSA

Metro hurt by poor performance at Real
By Lucy Killgren FT.com, 12:20 GMT Nov 2, 2005

A poor performance at Real hypermarkets took its toll on Metro, the German retail group, as it missed forecasts and pared back expectations for full year sales growth.

The world's third-largest retailer, which reported flat earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda), and sales up 4.9 per cent for the third quarter, said: "The business development of the Real hypermarkets remained behind expectations," it said. "Therefore the Metro group is adjusting sales expectations for 2005 and now anticipates sales growth of about 4 per cent."

At the time of its second quarter results in August, Metro had stuck to its forecast of 5-6 per cent full year sales growth.

"The market was influenced by ongoing uncertainty," it said on Wednesday. "With the outcome of the election, the generally expected improvement in consumer sentiment failed to materialise."

To compound its difficulties, Metro said it could be incurring a one-off non-cash deferred tax expense, which, it said, would be a "low-triple-digit million Euro" amount. Earnings per share in 2005 would be "significantly" below last year's level as a result, it added. Adjusted for this one-off, EPS should grow in the mid-single-digit percentage range.

Christian Schindler consumer and retail analyst with Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz, said: "There are fundamentally two issues: uncertainty has persisted after the election in Germany as consumers rein in spend over concerns about possible increases in tax and cuts in social expenditure. Secondly there is a Metro-specific issue: the German consumer is extremely price sensitive and this has been a significanty factor, particularly for Real, as discounters such as Aldi and Lidl have gained traction."

Real and its sister supermarket fascia Extra, account for about 17 per cent of total Metro sales, and both brands have struggled. In the third quarter like-for-like sales shrank by 1.7 per cent at both chains and by 6.6 per cent overall to €2.33bn.

The Real chain consists of 323 hypermarkets of which 287 are located in Germany and 36 abroad.

Dr Hans-Joachim Körber said: "We are not satisfied with the performance of Real. The measures introduced some months ago so far have not led to an improvement of its business in Germany. We continue to push forward with the repositioning of this sales division."

Group sales rose to €14.06bn for the quarter while ebitda was €596.7m up 0.3 per cent against last year.

Metro's DIY chain, Praktiker, is expected to be floated this month. JPMorgan, the investment bank, one of the leading banks for the IPO, calculated the market value of Praktiker to be €1.12bn - €1.27bn without property.

Shares were down 4.55 per cent by lunch time at €36.08.

2:30am 11/02/05
Metro quarterly profit rises, German sales decline (DE:725750) By Aude Lagorce
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- German retail behemoth Metro AG (DE:725750) on Wednesday said third-quarter pre-tax profit rose 18.1% to 248.7 million euros, or 45 euro cents a share, on sales up 4.9% to 14.06 billion euros. The share of international sales, up 11.4% to 6.7 billion euros, increased to 53.1% in the quarter. German sales declined 1.6% to 6.69 billion euros. Metro said that German food retail sales were significantly behind expectations, due to uncertainty around the general elections. Looking ahead, Metro said it sees EPS growth excluding one-time items in the mid-single digits in 2005 on a sales rise of 4%. The retailer also said that in Asia the expansion focus remains on China.