The wholesale giant only expects a slight drop in sales for the new financial year.
The outgoing Metro boss Olaf Koch is putting a dividend under the Christmas tree for investors in the corona crisis. The wholesale giant wants to pay its shareholders an unchanged dividend of 70 cents per share for the 2019/20 financial year, as it announced on Monday.
Income from sales
This is also made possible by the income from the sale of the China business, because the group posted declines in its business due to the burdens resulting from the pandemic for important customer groups such as hotels and restaurants.
In the new 2020/21 financial year, the group is now anticipating a slight decrease in sales, while the adjusted operating income (EBITDA) is expected to decline in the mid double-digit million euro range.
Double top
In the past fiscal year, Metro posted a decline in sales of 5.4 percent to 25.6 billion euros, as the group announced. Adjusted EBITDA shrank by 16.8 percent to around 1.16 billion euros. The bottom line was that the group earned 460 million euros from the sale of the majority stake in its China business to minorities.
From the turn of the year onwards, Metro will be led by a dual leadership until a successor for Koch is found. The board members Christian Baier and Rafael Gasset will jointly take over the position of chairman of the board for the interim period from January. Chairman of the Supervisory Board Jürgen Steinemann is looking for a successor for Koch.
Takeover offer
Koch had announced in August that he wanted to leave Metro at the end of the year. After that, major shareholder Daniel Kretinsky had collected more than 40 percent of Metro shares with a takeover offer. He can use it to buy more shares and tighten his grip on Metro.
In 2012, Koch had moved to the head of what was then Metro and had converted the widely ramified and highly indebted group into a pure wholesaler. Among other things, he had sold the department store giant Kaufhof, spun off the electronics retail chains Media Markt and Saturn under the Ceconomy holding company. Most recently, Metro finally parted with the Real supermarket chain last April.
