Ahold Delhaize cuts 2026 forecast as fridge hacks shake European supermarkets (updated)

Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize

Today 07:04

Adds context on cyberattacks in paragraphs 2 and 7, CFO comments in paragraphs 6, 8 and 9, shares and analyst comment in paragraphs 10 and 11.
October cyber incident to cut fourth-quarter net sales by €200 million to €250 million
Albert Heijn online orders were offline for 11 days after systems shutdown
CFO Poots-Bijl said scale helps Ahold withstand cyber disruptions better than smaller rivals
Monday's fridge hacks hit Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg, but impact was immaterial
By Margaux Perrin and Dimitri  Rhodes
Nov 4 (Reuters) - Dutch supermarket group Ahold Delhaize AD.AS cut its 2026 profitability and cash flow targets on Wednesday, reflecting estimated sales and earnings impacts of the October cybersecurity incident.
The group reported the incident to Dutch police last month, saying it had detected suspicious activity and taken its systems offline as a precaution. That caused an 11-day outage in online orders for Albert Heijn, the Netherlands' largest supermarket chain.
Ahold said the October incident would reduce its fourth-quarter net sales by €200 million to €250 million ($225 million to $281 million), while its underlying operating income would be hit by between €75 million and €100 million.
The group, which also runs the Delhaize chain in Belgium and Stop & Shop, Giant, Food Lion and Hannaford in the US, now expects an underlying operating margin approaching 4% for 2026, compared with an earlier forecast of around 4%.
It also cut its free cash flow target to around €2.1 billion from at least €2.3 billion previously.
"As a society globally, we're adjusting to a new reality," Chief Financial Officer Jolanda Poots-Bijl told Reuters, adding Ahold was better equipped to deal with such situations than smaller companies due to its size.
Another hacking attack on European supermarkets spread across the continent on Monday, hitting fridges and freezers from Sweden to Belgium and forcing stores to throw away food.
This included dozens of Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg, but Poots-Bijl said the damage was not financially material for the group.
"It's no longer an incident. We see it happening too often at large, and we all need to deal with it and protect ourselves in the best possible way," she told Reuters.
Ahold's shares rose 2.4% in early trading after its third-quarter sales and underlying operating profit topped market estimates.
"As we expect the outlook cut to be fully cyber related, and with most issues now resolved, we only see this a temporary headwind," KBC Securities analysts said in a note.
($1 = 0.8905 euros)

(Reporting by Margaux Perrin and Dimitri Rhodes in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
((Margaux.Perrin@thomsonreuters.com))