Shopper's Stop Ltd Q4 Retail Turnover at Rs.2356 mn, up by 38%

Mumbai, April 28, 2007: Shopper’s Stop Limited, India’s leading retail group (operator of large format department stores, home stores, speciality stores like book stores , master franchise operations of Mothercare, MAC, and hypermarkets) has reported a 38% increase in Retail turnover at Rs. 2356 mn in the fourth quarter of fiscal ended March 31, 2007 as compared to Rs 1712 mn for the same period last year. Operating profit (EBIDTA) in Q4FY07 rose by 21 % to Rs 161.86 mn from Rs.134.19 mn in the corresponding quarter.

The Company re-estimated the useful life of certain classes of assets, resulting in higher depreciation charge by Rs 101.15 mn for Q4FY07.

For the year ended March 31, 2007, Retail Turnover stood at Rs. 8995 mn up by 32.7% as compared to the year end March 31, 2006. The net profit for the full year stood at Rs 262 mn as compared to Rs 271 mn in the year-ago period, consequent to the additional charge of depreciation of Rs 101 mn. Had it not been for this additional charge the Net profit would have been Rs 363 mn, effectively a growth of 34%.

The board has recommended 15% dividend for FY 2006-07.

The Board of Directors have approved the issue of instrument(s) on a rights basis which may include but not limited to shares/ Partly Convertible Debentures/ Fully Convertible Debentures / warrants and / or combination thereof for upto an aggregate amount of about Rs.500 crores and has constituted and authorized a Committee of Directors of the Board to decide inter-alia the modalities of the proposed rights issue including but not limited to determining the price of instrument(s), the proportion and entitlement ratio, the timing and including record date of the issue.

Mr. B. S. Nagesh, Customer Care Associate, Managing Director of Shopper’s Stop Ltd., said "In the current year we saw many new initiatives which will increase our share of the consumer’s buy basket. These new initiatives have been launched through our associate company HyperCity Retail (India) Ltd, joint ventures like Nuance Group (India) Pvt. Ltd and Timezone Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. , and franchises like Mothercare , Argos, MAC and launch of F&B brands like Brio and Desi Cafe.

Mr. Govind Shrikhande, Customer Care Associate, C.E.O. of Shopper’s Stop Ltd. said "We are very pleased with the performance of Shoppers Stop department stores where we have seen a very healthy growth in revenues and operating profits which have shown a growth of 33% and 36% respectively. Shrinkage has been maintained below 0.5% levels, which is lower than the international benchmark.

Our loyalty programme called Shoppers’ Stop First Citizen as on March 31, 2007 has over 782,000 members as against 632,000 members in FY06. First Citizen Members accounted for more than 61% of the sales in year ended March 31, 2007. The total number of Customer Care Associates stands at 3071 for the year ended March 31, 2007."

Source : Equity Bulls

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