MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/. Net profit of Fix Price, Russia's largest variety value retailer, under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) climbed 3.9-fold in 1H 2023 year-on-year to 19.646 bln rubles ($200 mln), the company reported on Thursday.

EBITDA decreased by 9.3% to 23.562 bln rubles ($240 mln). Revenue added 3% to 135.677 bln rubles ($1.3 bln), retail revenue rose by 2.9% to 120.086 bln rubles ($1.2 bln). EBITDA margin totaled 17.4% in the reporting period compared to 19.7% in the same period last year.

Like-for-like (LFL) sales fell by 6.6% in 1H and by 7.9% in Q2 "on the back of the high base effect from the previous year, when customers were stockpiling amid rising inflation and uncertainty over the future availability of essential products," the company said. The LFL average ticket grew by 1.8% in Q2, while LFL traffic was 9.6% lower year-on-year "as macroeconomic headwinds continued to further subdue overall consumer sentiment and reduce demand for non-food impulse purchases in particular," the report said.

Fix Price opened 376 stores on a net basis in 1H 2023, including 333 company-operated stores and 43 franchise outlets, which is in line with store opening guidance for this year. As of the end of June the total number of Fix Price stores were 6,039, including 5,372 company-operated stores and 667 franchise outlets.

The total selling space of the store network amounted to 1.308 mln square meters as of June 30, up by 6.8% compared with the end of December 2022. Net debt decreased 7.4-fold in annual terms, reaching 3.545 bln rubles ($36 mln) as of the end of June. Net debt to EBITDA (IFRS 16) equaled 0.1x compared to 0.5x as of June 30, 2022.

"CAPEX for 1H 2023 was 3.4 billion rubles, down from 3.7 billion rubles in H1 2022, due to the completion of the active phase of the construction of distribution centers which had started in 2022. The new distribution centers will to a large extent cover the group’s warehouse space needs in the Central region of Russia for the next few years," according to the report.

"While subdued consumer sentiment and the effect of last year’s high base weighed on second-quarter revenue trends and like-for-like sales, our fundamentals remained strong. Our stores’ profit margins and return on investment are among the highest in the industry. We continued our brisk expansion in the first half of the year, enlarging our network with the addition of 376 new stores, and we are confident that we will reach our annual target of 750 net openings in 2023," Fix Price CEO Dmitry Kirsanov was quoted as saying.