Vassilopoulos: Rationalization, expansion and comeback to profitability

AB Vassilopoulos is looking guardant to greater “returns” from the strategic readying of web rationalization for this year, while the instrumentality to profitability is expected arsenic of 2026.

With a absorption connected the improvement of the franchise and small points of sale, the concatenation seeks to show a dynamic web with 900 stores nationwide by 2028.

Last year, there were some signs of betterment arsenic the home subsidiary of the Ahold Delhaize radical managed to bounds losses, amended adjusted operating profits contempt the information that turnover recorded a diminution of 2% successful a marketplace that grew astatine a complaint of +3.6%.

As AB Vassilopoulos Brand President Nikos Lavidas said: “For astir three years now, we person started and developed a program to rationalize our network. We person started and are making respective changes to our stores. We person converted a important fig into franchises, we person closed stores, we person renovated stores.

What I tin accidental is that we are precisely arsenic we had calculated when we started this path. All of this is done with 1 main purpose. To beryllium capable to make superior so that we tin reinvest successful prices, so that our consumers tin find products cheaper. Because, unfortunately, that’s the fig 1 issue. Everyone is acrophobic with precocious prices, it’s the fig 1 contented successful the news.”

Turnover

Last year, AB Vassilopoulos’ turnover fell by 1.98% to 1.94 cardinal euros, a improvement that is chiefly attributed to changes successful the network. As Lavidas explained, “when we person a store from a firm store to a franchise, portion of the turnover is lost, due to the fact that income to the user are nary longer counted, but income to the franchisee. So we are automatically talking astir a quality of implicit 25% and this creates a nonaccomplishment successful turnover. Also, successful 2024 we closed 8 stores that were loss-making, a improvement that people affected turnover.”
He noted that past year AB “essentially moved astatine little levels than the marketplace and this did not assistance us to summation turnover. I tin tell you that close now, we are pursuing the gait of the marketplace and maintaining a stable share.”

Profits

Referring to the gross nett margin, helium said that it stood astatine 25.3%, showing a diminution of 0.5% compared to 2023. “0.5% means 10 cardinal euros. Every year we amusement little borderline and this is impervious that we are successful compliance with the legislation, but it ultimately causes us the biggest contented regarding our nett profitability,” helium noted.

AB’s pre-tax profits maintained their antagonistic motion past year, however, limiting losses to 14.9 cardinal euros compared to losses of 21.3 cardinal euros successful 2023.
Respectively, nett losses stood astatine 15.7 cardinal euros compared to losses of 19.2 cardinal euros.