Moscow, May 29 - X5 Retail Group, Russia's largest food retailer by revenue, said on Thursday its first-quarter net profit surged 219 percent year-on-year to $86.3 million, helped by large currency gains.
X5, controlled by billionaire Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, said in a statement it received foreign exchange gains of $43 million in the first quarter on the back of the significant depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the rouble during the year.
Revenues rose 61 percent year-on-year to $1.786 billion due to robust sales growth across all formats, with discounters and hypermarkets demonstrating particularly strong growth.
The company said it had revised its full-year net sales growth forecast to more than 40 percent in rouble terms from 36-38 percent earlier, and raised its full-year like-for-like sales growth forecast to around 17 percent in rouble terms from 10 percent.
First-quarter earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were up 50 percent to $161 million. EBITDA margin fell to 9 percent from 9.7 percent a year ago.
Selling, general and administrative expenses at X5 rose 54 percent in January-March to $359 million due to higher staff costs and utility bills.
X5 said full-year gross margin and EBITDA margin targets remained unchanged at 25.8-26.2 percent and 8.8-9.0 percent, respectively.