Profi, a Romanian retailer owned by Polish private equity firm Enterprise Investors, ended 2011 with sales of almost 660 million lei (EUR152 million), up about 7% on previous year.
The growth, however, is below expectations, because business was slower in the second half of the year, said Pawel Musial, general manager of PROFI Rom Food, the operator of the Profi store chain.
Profi is the first retailer to announce its financial results and plans for the year.
Its sales were driven up by expansion last year, when the company opened 26 stores. Profi did not announce the like-for-like sales, though.
Consumer spending continued to fall in 2011, following the declines of 2009 and 2010. Retail sales fell 4% on the year in January through November, according to data released by the National Statistics Institute. October and November came with the first positive signs in terms of consumer spending.
Pawel Musial says the company plans to expand as it has been doing for several years now and open more than 25 convenience stores in 2012. Investment in the new stores should amount to EUR20 million, ZF estimates, and create more than 600 jobs.
The company has doubled its network over the past three years. It had 108 stores at the end of 2011 compared with 52 in 2008 and sped up expansion pace last year, when it opened 26 stores, almost twice as many as in the two years before that. (EUR1=4.3625)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)