| | Robert Kierzek, CEO of Inter Cars wants foreign sales of the company to increase even by 10% yearly. Leading distributor of spare parts for cars and motorcycles wants to grow faster than the market, which value in Poland grows yearly by 3-5 percent. - In Poland we want to grow twice faster than the market, whereas when talking about foreign daughter companies the growth dynamics should be at least twice higher – says Robert Kierzek, CEO of Inter Cars. According to preliminary estimations the company ended last year with a revenue of about 2.8 billion PLN and over 100 million in plus. That is why CEO of Inter Cars wants to recommend paying out the dividend from the last years’ profits. Last time the company paid a dividend to the shareholders was for profit earned in 2007. |
After three quarters, Inter Cars had over 80 million of profit. The whole year, the company was supposed to close with a three-digit net profit. Did you manage to exceed 100 million PLN?
Preliminary estimations show that we have managed to do it. It was possible, because our costs were growing slower than our revenue. Last year we managed to close according to plan – with revenue of about 2.8 billion PLN.
Does this mean paying out the dividend?
I am for paying out the dividend. And this will be my recommendation. Right now I would not like to talk about the amount of it, because the idea has to be accepted by Supervisory Board. It can decide about leaving the whole profit in the company, if the situation on financial markets changes dramatically. We have to be better safe than sorry, because the company has to pay its credits. But I do not suppose this will happen. This year’s plan is to optimize operations and profitability.
What exactly do you want to do?
It is true that this year we will focus more not on increasing the business but on cleaning our company. We are looking through all costs and trying to find some savings. First of all we want to optimize the stock and adapt the structure of the stock to deliveries and to demand for particular products in the market.
What savings do you expect?
Our aim is to keep the right proportion between cost and revenue. The main aim is that increase of revenue shall not create additional cost. Within the last several years our revenue, especially in foreign daughters, were improved by several percent yearly. It is hard to assume, that such development will continue also in 2012. But still our aim is to grow more than the market. And its value in Poland goes up by 3-5 percent.
How does it suppose to look in particular markets?
In Poland we want to grow twice faster than the market, and when talking about our foreign daughter companies, the growth should be twice faster than in the country.
This means that revenue of the company should exceed 3 billion PLN?
It seems this way. It is not important for us if the revenue this year will be 2.9 billion PLN or 3.2 billion, it is important to improve profitability. It will be possible, if we keep the profit margin on the level from previous year (after three quarters the margin on sales was 32.8%).
Feber Daughter company was supposed to end the year 2011 in plus. Did you succeed?
The whole year 2011, new managers of the company were dealing with optimization of production in the company, unifying the offer and creating new sales chain. This now gives the expected effects, because month after month the loss was smaller, but we did not manage to end the year with a profit. We have made too optimistic assumption, that within one year everything can be repaired, what went wrong for several previous years. Moreover the market was not favourable for us. Many investments in building roads were not sure, so contractors who were to take semitrailers from us waited with their decisions. Decreased demand for tippers we are trying to compensate by renting them to our customers, when they do not decide to buy them. All these activities are aimed to make the company bring profits this year.
What about planned expansion to new markets? You were supposed to invest in Serbia and Slovenia.
We are postponing our plans of expansion. We want to focus on what we have already got. There is a lot to do there.
So you will not take over other companies, what was discussed recently?
We are constantly observing the countries where we are not present. We do not exclude possibility of takeover, but only if there is a really good chance. It would have to be a business with some market share in the area that we are operating on, so that after the merger we could work out synergy in the whole Group. But now we are not looking for any targets for acquisition.
Inter Cars was interested in taking over not only large distribution companies, but also smaller specialized businesses which could complete the offer of the Group. Is anything going on in this question?
We will not purchase, right now. We have an idea of increasing the loyalty of our customers, by building for them readymade servicing garages. Many mechanics have nor funds for development. We can make for them a workplace, that is design a garage, build it, equip it and help in financing this investment. In return we are expecting a declaration of cooperation, that is purchasing goods from us in the future.
Is there a big interest?
The project has lasted for six months now. There is a big interest in this project, but because of high cost, we have now launched two pilot investments.
Do you also want to build garage chain yourselves? In September last year you bought Polmozbyt in Łódź, which besides selling cars and spare parts also deals in repairs.
Shares in Polmozbyt we bought together with Liberty Motors, as a consortium, with company which operates our distribution outlets in Łódź. In our strategy there is now and never have been creating servicing garages, which we would own. In that case it was to help our partner on local market of distribution of spare parts for cars. Soon Inter Cars will be pulling out of this project gradually. We will sell our shares to our partner till the end of I quarter. Right now I do not want to give any details of the transaction.
source: Parkiet DZ. / No 31
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