Inter Cars, which increased domestic revenue in the first quarter by 7.3 percent, wants to keep growing faster than the whole automotive spare parts market in Poland in the whole year. The Group wants to reinvest the profit, but at the same time stay "seen as a dividend company" - said Piotr Zamora, CFO of the company to PAP.
"Looking at the perspectives, in the whole year 2015 we are expecting an increase higher than the market, in the main product categories and expansion in assortment categories, such as tyres, spare parts for heavy goods vehicles" - said Piotr Zamora.
CFO of Inter Cars stated that expansion in spare parts for HGV and tyres needed the Group to increase the product range, what was the main reason of negative cash flow from operating activities last year.
"Development in those product categories required from us bigger involvement in stock, because of the development of the product offer and the need of keeping more goods on the stock, close to the customer" - said Piotr Zamora.
In the first quarter 2015, Inter Cars Group reported PLN 974m sales revenue, an increase by 14.7 percent year on year.
As director Zamora said to PAP, the main determiners of sales increase of Inter Cars in this period were: dynamic growth in such market segments as tyres, spare parts for heavy goods vehicles in the country and increase in sales in foreign distribution subsidiaries.
In the first quarter the sales of goods in Poland increased by 7.3%, up to PLN 599 million. The sales revenues of foreign distribution subsidiaries went up in the same period by 39.1 percent, up to PLN 314.5 million.
Zamora also stated that starting from previous year, one can notice increased competition on domestic market of automotive spare parts.
"The situation is caused by the fact that, some domestic distributors, who had generated part of their revenues in export sales to such countries as Russia or Ukraine, because of the Ukrainian crisis, are now offering their goods only on domestic market, competing mostly with prices" - he said.
He also added that because of a short and light winter, the traditional seasonal peek of sales on the turn of February and March was less noticeable than last year.
"Shorter wintertime is smaller wear of cars and spring repairs were realized in a longer time" - he explained.
Asked about the influence of the last changes on the currency exchange market on the business of Inter Cars, Piotr Zamora replied: "Realizing purchases and revenues in Euro, we have, so called, natural hedging on the European currency and the last fall of Euro should not influence our financial results significantly".
For the coming year, Inter Cars is planning to sell the offices and warehouse in Nadarzyn, nearby Warsaw.
"As we shall launch the new Central Warehouse next year, we are planning to sell the warehouse and offices in Nadarzyn near Warsaw. These are premises which we took over in 2007, during the merger with JC Auto, which will influence positively our financial results" - said Piotr Zamora to PAP.
The premises in Nadarzyn will be moved to the new central warehouse in Zakroczym, which together with some IT projects remains the main investment goal of Inter Cars for this and the following year.
"We are planning to open the logistics centre in Zakroczym in the summer of the next year. This year we shall bear around 60% of planned investment expenditure for this project, which in total shall amount to around PLN 150m, whereof over a half shall be spent on inter-warehouse logistics" - explained Piotr Zamora.
The CFO also added that the Group is not planning any significant investment in warehouse area connected to international development.
"As regards the growing volume on foreign markets, it is the warehouse in Sosnowiec, which substituted the warehouse in Mysłowice at the beginning of 2015. The warehouse in Mysłowice is around 17k sq.m. of rented storage space" - he announced to PAP.
Despite high expenditure, Inter Cars wishes to stay a dividend company.
"Because of the chances which we see in development of distribution chain, and of the high return on investment, amounting to around 17%, we mostly wish to reinvest generated profits, but we also wish to be seen as a dividend company." - powiedział.
Of the profit generated by the company in 2013, PLN 10m was paid-out as a dividend, which gave PLN 0.71 per share. In 2013 the consolidated net profit of Inter Cars SA was PLN 146.3m In 2014 it was PLN 177.4m.
Source: Bankier.pl
30.04.2015