The corona crisis is also hitting department store chain Hema, which has therefore already written off some 100 million euro. The impact of the pandemic will continue to be felt in the years to come, expects the retailer, who nevertheless managed to halve its loss.
Loss halved
In 2019, department store chain Hema saw its turnover decrease slightly by 0.8% to 1.26 billion euro. The net loss amounted to 117.4 billion euro, compared to 234.9 billion the year before. This loss was mainly due to depreciations as a result of the corona crisis. In total, Hema wrote off almost 100 million euros on goodwill, on property (mainly real estate) and on its bakeries, which have been for sale for two years. The department store chain expects the corona crisis to continue to put pressure on profits in the coming years, reports the FD.
Although the figures refer to the broken financial year 2019, which already ended at the end of February – i.e. before the major coronavirus outbreak in Europe – ignoring the pandemic would, according to the retailer, not give a true and fair picture. Hema made use of a government measure that allowed companies to submit the annual report five months later during the corona crisis.
In spite of the corona crisis, the retailer said it was performing “robustly” in the first two quarters of the new financial year. Meanwhile, it is known that Hema has found a buyer: the investment funds Parcom and Mississippi Ventures (of the van Eerd family, which also owns Jumbo) want to take over the department store chain and develop new growth plans. They plan to complete the financing within a few weeks. Hema and Jumbo have been working closely together since the beginning of this year: a range of non-food from Hema is on the shelves at the supermarket chain. In addition, Jumbo is taking over 17 stores from Hema.
