Russia's Fix Price reports jumps in first-half revenue, announces dividend

Fix Price

12/08/2021 09:02

MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russian low-cost retailer Fix
Price  FIXPDR.MM  FIXPq.L  on Thursday said its revenue rose
28.1% to 106.1 billion roubles ($1.44 billion) in the first half
of 2021.
    The results lifted Fix Price's share price, which has lost
around 20% since a market debut in March, to a more than
three-week high.
    Fix Price raised around $2 billion in an initial public
offering on the London Stock Exchange, the biggest Russian IPO
since western sanctions were introduced in 2014, capitalising on
the COVID-19 pandemic reducing Russians' spending power and
shopping more at low-cost retailers.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N2L31HV  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2KL133
    The company's depositary receipts in Moscow were up 0.8% as
of 0737 GMT, outperforming the wider index and after reaching
their highest level since July 19 in early trade. 
    Fix Price, which sells low-priced goods in walk-in shops and
online, said double-digit like-for-like sales growth and adding
418 stores to its network in the first half of the year were
behind the jump in revenue. Like-for-like sales grew 11.9%.
    Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation
(EBITDA) increased 24.1% to 19.8 billion roubles, with an EBITDA
margin of 18.7%, down from 19.3% for the same period a year ago.
    Chief Executive Dmitry Kirsanov said in a statement this was
a robust EBITDA margin, slightly below the unusually high level
of last year and significantly above the same period in
pre-COVID 2019.
    Fix Price said the company intends to pay an interim
dividend of 11.5 roubles per share or global depositary receipt,
amounting to 100% of profit under the international financial
reporting standards for the first half of 2021. 
    BCS Global Markets analysts said this payout implied a
dividend yield of 2%. 

($1 = 73.6350 roubles)

 (Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Susan Fenton)
 ((alexander.marrow@thomsonreuters.com;))