Retail group Metro lowers dividend

EBIT also down

The announcement came unexpected, as Metro only
releases its financial results for the year 2012 on March 20, but
because the results will have a substantial effect on the share price, the
company decided to announce the lowering of the dividend earlier than expected.

Metro also revealed that earnings before
interest and taxes and one-time expenses for the past year have dropped to 1.98
billion euro. In 2011 the counter had stopped at 2.37 billion euro.

High one-time expenses

In 2012 the retail group faced some one-time expenses, like the selling of cash & carry
activities in the United Kingdom and hypermarkets in Central Europe, which were
sold to colleague Auchan. The expansion of Media Markt in China was also
frozen and the group started a plan to cut costs. All these expenses amounted
to a one-time expense of 585 million euro.

After the announcement of the lower dividend
the share price of Metro dropped by 5% in Frankfurt. Over the past two years the
shares of Metro lost more than half their value.