Defying what were at times extreme weather conditions in the spring months, the Hornbach Group began the 2016/2017 financial year on a successful note.
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Consolidated sales for the first three months (March 1 to May 31, 2016) grew by 6.1% to Euro 1,116 million.
At Euro 76.5 million, consolidated operating earnings (EBIT) at the Hornbach Group matched the previous year’s figure. The company has confirmed its full-year sales and earnings forecast for 2016/2017.
Sales at Hornbach Baumarkt AG, the largest operating subgroup, exceeded the one billion euro mark for the first time. Consolidated sales here rose by 6.4% to Euro 1,058.9 million (2015/2016: Euro 995.2 million).
These figures account for the opening of two new DIY megastores in Innsbruck (Austria) and Prague (Czech Republic), as well as the closure of a small former location in Mannheim due to the lack of any possibility to extend the site.
On a like-for-like basis, i.e. excluding stores newly opened or closed in the past twelve months, consolidated sales rose by 4.4% net of currency items in the first three months, and by 4.0% including currency items for non-euro countries.
The Hornbach Baumarkt AG Group currently operates 154 DIY megastores with garden centers in nine European countries. Net sales at the 98 Hornbach stores in Germany increased by 2.8% to Euro 591.9 million in the first quarter (2015/2016: Euro 575.7 million).
Like-for-like sales here rose by 2.7%. Based on its own figures, Hornbach thus significantly outperformed the sector average once again and acquired additional market share (2015: 11.0%).
Outside Germany, Hornbach upheld the positive sales trend seen in the past two financial years in the first quarter of 2016/2017, and that to an impressive extent.
Including the new store openings referred to above, sales in other European countries, the segment in which the DIY business activities in eight countries outside Germany are pooled, grew by 11.3% to Euro 467.0 million (2015/2016: Euro 419.6 million).
The international share of sales at the Hornbach Baumarkt AG subgroup rose from 42.2% to 44.1%. Like-for-like sales in other European countries grew by 6.6% net of currency items, and by 5.7% including currency items.
The Hornbach Baustoff Union GmbH (HBU) subgroup also showed a robust sales performance in the period under report.
Even though private construction clients and professional customers in the subgroup’s key target groups of the main construction and sub-construction trades were obliged to curtail or postpone their projects due to difficult weather conditions, HBU’s sales for the first three months rose by 0.8% to Euro 56.8 million (2015/2016: Euro 56.4 million).
As of May 31, 2016, this subgroup operated an unchanged total of 24 builders’ merchants outlets in south-western Germany and two locations close to the border in France (Lorraine). ■