Metro up in early trade on 'welcome' upgrade to FY outlook

Metro AG

22/04/2022 07:52

** Shares of Metro  B4B.DE  are up 2.2% in early Frankfurt
trade after the German wholesale and food service company raised
on Thursday its outlook for FY 2021/22, citing rising inflation
and better than expected business development  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nEQ135vJYa
    ** Jefferies says unscheduled FY guidance upgrade is a
"welcome offset to a conflict-driven narrative", seeing the
stock to react positively to evidence of strong demand in the
face of challenges to consumer sentiment
    ** The company now expects sales to grow by around 9% to 15%
and adj. EBITDA to grow slightly to moderately vs. previous year
    ** The war in Ukraine has a strong negative impact on the
business development in the country, the company said in a
statement, adding it sees sanctions in Russia to result in a
declining consumer sentiment and challenged product availability
in the second half of the year
    ** It previously forecast sales growth of 3% to 7% and adj.
EBITDA at previous year level  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nS8N2RH061
    ** The stock is among top performers on the German small-cap
index  .SDAXI 


 (Reporting by Anastasiia Kozlova)
 ((Anastasiia.Kozlova@thomsonreuters.com))