Valora posts higher net profit

 After last year's loss of 56.3 million, the internationally active Swiss retail group Valora has increased its net profit to 65.8 million. At 2.9 percent or CHF 82.0 million, the operating profit margin is within the forecast range. The return on invested capital more than doubled from around 4 percent to 10.6 percent. The Board of Directors will propose to the Annual General Meeting that a dividend of CHF 9 per share be distributed. In line with its revised strategy, Valora is clearly focusing on growth in its retail business. The Valora Trade division's Own Brands unit (production operations) is to be sold, the company announced on Wednesday. In a declining market environment, the Valora Press & Books division was able to maintain net revenues at the previous year's level of CHF 560.2 million. The companies in Austria and Luxembourg also increased their sales slightly thanks to the successful sale of additional products. The Swiss business, which with its high proportion of daily newspapers is most exposed to the market downturn, lost around 3 percent in sales. Thanks to good cost management, the division's operating profit margin increased to a pleasing 5 percent.
In press wholesaling, growth is linked to the concentration and expansion of distribution activities in new markets on the one hand and the development of new forms of distribution on the other. The increasing distribution of media content via digital channels calls for new business models which also open up profitable development opportunities for Valora. For this reason, the division is to be rebranded as Valora Media.
Finally, Valora is revising its previous outlook for this year slightly downwards. The company now anticipates an operating profit margin of around 3 percent for 2007 - and not 4 percent as announced last August.