10th Dec 2015 08:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - Electricals retailer Darty PLC on Thursday said its pretax profit rose in the first half as it made good progress on its performance in France and Belgium, while it said it expects its takeover by Groupe Fnac to take place by the middle of next year.
The company said its pretax profit for the half to the end of October was EUR9.2 million, compared to EUR7.0 million a year earlier, as revenue ticked up to EUR1.66 billion from EUR1.64 billion.
Like-for-like sales in the half were up 1.1%, compared to a 1.2% decline a year earlier, with good momentum in its French business, where it increased its market share, and strong trading over the summer in both France and Belgium.
The group said it would pay an unchanged interim dividend of 0.875 euro cents per share.
Darty is in the process of being acquired by French rival Groupe Fnac in a deal which values Darty around GBP615.0 million. It expects this deal to complete by the middle of 2016, dependent on regulatory approvals.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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