Hornbach Holding AG & Co. KGaA: Substantial sales and earnings growth in first quarter of 2020/21 - Operating earnings of Hornbach Group up almost 80 percent

Substantial sales and earnings growth in first quarter of 2020/21:
Operating earnings of Hornbach Group up almost 80 percent

Neustadt a. d. Weinstrasse, June 9, 2020.
The Hornbach Holding AG & Co. KGaA Group (Hornbach Group) can report a jump in its sales and earnings for the first quarter (March 1 to May 31, 2020) of the 2020/21 financial year compared with the previous year's quarter.
 

Based on initial preliminary figures, consolidated sales in the opening quarter increased by 17.8% to Euro 1,577 million (2019/20: Euro 1,338.4 million). Consolidated adjusted EBIT (operating earnings excluding non-operating earnings items*) rose by some 78% to around Euro 173 million (2019/20: Euro 96.9 million).

The substantial improvement in earnings was essentially driven by strong sales growth at the 160 DIY stores with garden centers operated by the Hornbach Baumarkt AG subgroup. In the course of the coronavirus crisis, demand from DIY customers in the stationary and online business has risen notably since mid-March, also benefiting from favorable spring weather in 2020. At plus 34%, the strongest sales growth was reported in May 2020, when all 64 of the Hornbach DIY stores and garden centers initially affected by official sales restrictions had been reopened (March 2020: minus 2%; April 2020: plus 17%).

The full-year outlook for 2020/21 published in the 2019/20 Annual Report is nevertheless unchanged for now. In this respect, the Board of Management points to the considerable and hardly predictable macroeconomic risks to the company's business performance looking forward due to the coronavirus crisis. From a current perspective, it still deems it likely that consolidated sales for the 2020/21 financial year as whole will approximately match the level reported for the 2019/20 financial year (Euro 4.7 billion) and that consolidated adjusted earnings (adjusted EBIT) will fall slightly short of the previous year's figure (Euro 227.0 million).

The definitive figures for the first quarter of 2020/21 will be published in the Quarterly Statement on June 26, 2020.
 

* In Q1 2020/21, non-operating income amounted to Euro 0.6 million (Q1 2019/20: no non-operating items).