Moscow, Sept 9 - Russian food retailer Dixy reported on Tuesday a net profit of $11.5 million for the first half of 2008 after a net loss of $5 million in the same period of last year. Dixy said in a statement the rise reflected an increase in operating income and reduction in debt service costs.
"The results confirm the effectiveness of our strategy, which is set not only for expansion of the Dixy Group chain of stores, but also for the improvement in the performance indicators of our company," Vitaly Klyuchnikov, the president of Dixy Group, said in the statement.
"For the first half of this year, we have simultaneously boosted our sales and profit figures together with the profitability margins of our business," he said.
Sales at Dixy rose 49 percent to $964.4 million, helped by strong performance of mature stores and a net addition of 56 outlets in the past 12 months, the company said.
Earnings bebore interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) more than doubled to $52 million, and the EBITDA margin amounted to 5.4 percent.
Gross profit rose 56 percent to $234.8 million and gross margin improved to 24.3 percent from 23.2 percent a year ago. At the end of June, the company's net debt increased to $230 million from $163.4 million at the end of 2007.
Dixy is controlled by businessman Igor Kesayev through his Mercury holding company, which owns 51 percent of Dixy Group. In 2007, revenues at Dixy rose 44 percent to $1.43 billion.