Russia's leading grocery retailer X5 has announced that it suffered a drop in net profits through the first quarter of the year, down 32 per cent year-on-year to US$66m as a result of expenses linked to new store openings.
Net sales for the quarter grew very slightly, up 0.7 per cent to US$3.87bn, while EBITDA came to US$274m.
'The significant step-up in store openings, and associated SG&A expenses, in the second half of 2011 as well as the continued ramp-up ofthese and Kopeyka stores' sales densities, negatively affected our SG&A expenses as a percentage of net sales,' the company said in a statement.
