X5 Retail Group N.V. plans a secondary offering
16 Apr 2007
Amsterdam, 13 April 2007 – X5 Retail Group N.V., Russia's leading retailer in terms of sales (LSE ticker: “FIVE”), today announced the decision of the Group Supervisory Board to approve the company’s five year business and financial strategy. In particular, the Supervisory Board supported the management proposal to make a secondary public offering of X5 new ordinary shares during 2007 to raise $ 1,0 billion to finance potential M&A deals and organic growth plans. The Group will disclose its business and financial targets and key parameters of the offering in due course.
Lev Khasis, Group CEO, stated: “The secondary offering of our shares is one of the instruments we are planning to use during this year to raise additional capital to finance potential acquisition of Karusel hypermarket chain exercisable from 1 January 2008 and our aggressive organic growth. We are delighted with the strong support of our objectives and investment plans from our major shareholders and Supervisory Board members who unanimously approved the business and financial strategy proposed by the management.”
The Supervisory Board also approved the Group’s 2006 audited accounts which the company plans to make public on 18 April 2007 after the Group auditor, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, have signed the auditor report.
Note to Editors:
X5 Retail Group N.V. is Russia's largest food retailer in terms of sales. As of 31 March 2007, the Group had 512 company-managed "Pyaterochka" soft discount stores located in the Moscow (232), St. Petersburg (215) and other Russian areas (65), and 169 company-managed "Perekrestok" supermarkets across Central Russia and Ukraine, including 99 stores in Moscow.
As of 31 March 2007, franchisees operated 533 Pyaterochka branded stores across Russia and Kazakhstan. Perekrestok had 10 convenience stores operated by franchisees in the Moscow area.
Pyaterochka and Perekrestok have merged their operations as of 18 May 2006 to create the clear leader in the Russian food retail market.
The Group’s pro forma net sales for the FY 2006 were $3,485 million, up +47% vs. 2005 (preliminary management accounts). Pyaterochka chain provided US $1,973 million of net sales, while the Perekrestok chain contributed US $1,512 million of net sales.
Forward looking statements:
This announcement includes statements that are, or may be deemed to be, “forward-looking statements”. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not only relate to historical or current events. Forward-looking statements often use words such as” anticipate”, “target”, “expect”, “estimate”, “intend”, “expected”, “plan”, “goal” believe”, or other words of similar meaning.
By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to future events and circumstances, a number of which are beyond X5 Retail Group N.V.'s control. As a result, actual future results may differ materially from the plans, goals and expectations set out in these forward-looking statements.
Any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of X5 Retail Group N.V. speak only as at the date of this announcement. Save as required by any applicable laws or regulations, X5 Retail Group N.V. undertakes no obligation publicly to release the results of any revisions to any forward-looking statements in this document that may occur due to any change in its expectations or to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this document.
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