Moscow - Eldorado, a major Russian consumer electronics and home appliances retailer, continued to be more profitable than its competitors in 2012.
Eldorado had a gross margin of 27.6% last year, with sales of 2.398 billion euros and gross profit of 661 million euros, the Czech Republic’s PPF Group, which owns 100% of LLC Eldorado, said in its annual report.
Rival chain M.Video had a gross margin of 24.7% in 2012.
In 2011, Eldorado had a gross margin of 28.7%, compared to M.Video’s 24.6%.
However, M.Video overtook its rival by rate of revenue growth. The company’s sales (including VAT) grew 19.3% to 157.6 billion rubles in 2012, while Eldorado’s rose 15.3% to 112.4 billion rubles (with VAT).
LLC Media Markt Saturn, which operates the Media Markt chain, saw its gross margin slip to 15% in 2012 from 15.4% in 2011, information in the SPARK-Interfax database shows. The company’s gross profit grew 14.1% to 6.6 billion rubles last year and sales rose 16.8% to 43.9 billion rubles. Media Markt itself said earlier that sales grew 17.8% to 1.028 billion euros.
Eldorado, with 404 hypermarkets at the end of 2012, is the largest retailer in its segment by number of stores, while M.Video leads by sales.
M.Video filed an application with the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service in April to buy 100% of Eldorado. There has been talk on the market of a potential merger between the companies since 2011. M.Video co-owner Alexander Tynkovan said at the time that there could be “integration” in future.
In light of the possible deal, M.Video shareholders decided not to pay dividends for 2012. The company said its board of directors might consider the issue of dividend payments before the end of the summer, once “all strategic possibilities for development” on the market have been studied.
In 2012, M.Video paid shareholders 1.043 billion rubles in dividends for 2011 and a special dividend of 5.4 billion rubles. Eldorado paid its owner dividends of 1.8 billion rubles in 2012. The company did not pay dividends in 2011, according to the SPARK-Interfax database.
