Rough first quarter for DIY-company Hornbach

32%
less profit

The first
quarter of Hornbach (1 March to 31 May) is one not to remember: sales dropped from 918.8 million euro last year to 892 million euro for the
past quarter. Still, it was mainly the operational profit that took a big hit: it went
from 75.4 million euro to 51.1 million euro, a drop of no less than 32.2%.

“Nor we,
nor the entire DIY-sector has ever seen such a bad start to the year”, said
Albrecht Hornbach, CEO of the company. “Snow and ice literally froze demand at
out construction and garden centres in the month of March and the first half of
April.” On a comparable basis Hornbach-Baumarkt, the largest entity in the
group, saw sales drop by no less than 5.9%.

Retaining
prognosis for the year

The only
positive point is that the Hornbach megastores with garden centre perform
slightly better than the sector average on the German market, despite the bad
weather. With a sales drop of 5.8% they did one percent than the rest of the
sector on average.

In the eight countries outside of Germany where the group is operational, sales on a
comparable basis dropped 6.1%. Including the new stores the foreign activities
remained almost status quo (-0.4%). Outside of Germany Hornbach-Baumarkt
currently has sales of 360 million euro, 42.9% of the total. This means the
market abroad is gaining in importance, as last year its share was 41.8%.

Nonetheless
management is positive that, despite the bad start, the prognosis for the
entire financial year will be kept. “We have faith we will be capable to make
up for our start in the months to come”, said Albrecht Hornbach. “The need for
construction materials is still large.”