After good I quarter, you declared that Board of Inter Cars can pay out up to 20 % Of last year profit. Shareholders were counting on splitting maximum about 20 million PLN. But the policy on dividends adapted lately assumes splitting only profits in the years when they exceed 100 million PLN. Why is this change?
Recorded in the last two months market slowdown made us modify a bit our previous assumption. In situation, when all companies must show bigger attention to costs, interest rates grow, international finance markets seem to be not sure, it is rather obvious that we should leave cash inside the Company. At the same time we want to be company which is sharing profit fit investors. That is why, if the year is good, i.e. our profit exceeds 100 million PLN, we will be paying out the excessive profit, but no more than 20%.
| | The beginning of II was not favourable for you. In this case, is the forecasted level of revenue of 3 billion PLN still real? I am counting on it. We still want to grow faster than the market. The first quarter ended not bad. And though April was a bit worse than the period January-March, the level of our optimism increased a bit in May. This month we are noticing a slightly bigger sales increase than in previous four months. So we can assume that customers postponed a bit their spending on cars. I hope that this demand will remain the same in the following months. It is hard to resign completely from servicing your car and changing pars, especially if you drive it everyday. |
Inter Cars keeps their position, that they want to grow faster than the market, but you said lately that the market will be growing by about 1-2%, this means within statistical error limits. So it is not possible to keep an increase of two digits?
That’s true. The market is slowing down and it is hard to keep the same level of optimism as in March. This year, spring season was not standard, because as I mentioned, there were no bigger purchases from Customers. I do believe that we will be able to keep a double digit increase of revenue. I am not able to say precisely if this will be 7 or 10 percent, or maybe bit more. There are such months, like May, when we are really close to a double digit increase of revenue. No increase of the market has also its advantages. Such situation hastens consolidation of the market. I think mostly about dropping out of weaker players, not acquisitions.
Will you make 100 million net profit this year and pay out the dividend?
I hope that we can do it.
How are you going to make it? On such a difficult market it is hard to count on increasing the margins.
We do not assume a decrease of margin on a longer period of time. Short-term it might fluctuate, what is a result of currency exchange rate. Currently we are observing reconstruction of percentage margin, after a low point at the end of April. Moreover we want to go towards further cost optimization and optimization of business processes. For the last few years, because of high development dynamics, current problems dominated the need of ordering the Company. Now it is a good time for cleaning.
Will you be looking for savings, and what kind of?
We are looking for savings in different areas, in parent company as well as in daughter companies. We put a heavy emphasise on optimizing logistic processes with special attention to rotation of goods. Basically the biggest savings will be generated in this area. In comparison to the same period last year, we managed to lower the value of stock by 50 million PLN with no effect on availability of goods and at the same time bigger revenue. On a yearly basis we can gain from this several million PLN savings.
A chance to attract customers, to whom you are selling your goods, you see in refreshed Motointegrator website. What amount of revenue do you expect to get from it and in what period of time?
We do not expect to increase our revenue in a short period of time. We are thinking about the future, because more and more people are looking for information about spare parts in the Internet. We want to attract drivers, who have cars after guarantee period and they do not want to service their cars in authorised garages any more, but at the same time they are looking for reliable garages offering good quality. We think that e-commerce within 5 years’ time will generate for us a revenue in hundreds millions PLN.
Interview by Aneta Wieczerzak-Krusińska
source: www.parkiet.com
DZ. / No 143 back