Metro Group has started the financial year with a positive result, reporting on earnings growth for the opening quarter of 2013 despite what it has called the 'persisting economic downturn' in many European countries.
The German group noted that EBIT before special items climbed to €14m for the quarter (€1m after special items), up from a loss of €8m in the same period of 2012, the result of improvements in its domestic operations where sales grew 1 per cent to €6.1bn.
The net result for the quarter attributable to Metro improved from a loss of €80m last year to a loss of €16m, despite a slight drop in overall group sales of 0.9 per cent, from €15.6bn to €15.5bn.
Western European sales fell away by 6.6 per cent, down to €4.4bn, although there were higher sales in eastern Europe (+0.7 per cent to €4bn) and Asia/Africa (+9.3 per cent to €1bn).
'In many countries, our customers' purchasing power has been affected by the economic downturn and the related government austerity measures,' said Olaf Koch, chairman of the management board of Metro. 'However, we managed to improve our earnings and maintain our sales at a stable level year-on-year.
'This shows that the changes we initiated on a broad front are gaining further traction,' he insisted. 'This is particularly apparent when looking at the development in our home market Germany where we again saw a rise in like-for-like sales.'
