Retail group Ahold Delhaize reported higher profit on higher revenue in the first three months of the year. Albert Heijn’s parent company Etos and bol.com is still grappling with higher costs for energy, for example. These are partly carried over to higher prices, but the company also says it’s saving a lot of costs elsewhere to offset this. At the same time, the multinational’s supermarkets had to contend with strikes in Belgium, as a result of which results in Europe lagged behind.
Underlying net income was €593 million, 7% more than in the same period last year. Profit margins, which indicate how many cents of profit are made per euro of turnover, have decreased slightly. Turnover increased by 9.4% to 21.6 billion euros. Once again, operations in the US, where Ahold Delhaize makes the majority of his sales, have been much more profitable than in Europe. The exchange rate was also favourable.
“We keep prices as low as possible,” says CEO Frans Muller in an explanation. He points to a savings program that should yield €1 billion in cost benefits.
Albert Heijn has recently suffered from strikes in Dutch distribution centres, as a result of which the shelves of many of the chain’s supermarkets have become increasingly empty. That’s not reflected in the results yet, because the shares kicked in after the first quarter. But during that time, Delhaize stores in Belgium suffered from strikes by angry employees who didn’t want those businesses handed over to franchisees. According to an analyst at the Degroof Petercam bank, this cost around 100 million euros in turnover.
Source: BNR
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