Lekkerland Group looks back on a successful year 2016

According to the company, the gross margin grew by € 24.7 m to € 620.5 m. As a result of business expansions and additional optimisations of the cost structure, the result from operations before financial result improved by 28% (€ 18.9 m) to € 85.4 m. “Overall, Lekkerland is in a good position, as is demonstrated by the results of the past business year,” summarised Patrick Steppe, Chairman of the Management Board (CEO) of the Lekkerland Group.

In the business year 2016, all the segments improved their performance: Sales in the Germany segment rose by 0.7% compared with the previous year to € 7.737 bn. In the Rest of Western Europe segment, sales posted an even more marked increase of 9.7% to € 5.266 bn, particularly as a result of an acquisition in Switzerland. All three product ranges of Lekkerland recorded a positive development in sales. The tobacco goods product range went up by 4.7% to € 10.406 bn. Sales in the higher-margin range food / non-food increased by 1.9% to € 2.480 bn, and the Lekkerland Group succeeded in expanding sales by 5.0% to € 116.7 m in commissions on electronic value (e-va) / miscellaneous.

When allocated to sales channels, the following results were generated: Sales for the system customers sales channel underwent the strongest growth by 7.6% to € 4.423 bn. Meanwhile, the regional customers sales channel increased by 4.4% to € 2.088 bn and the filling stations sales channel rose by 1.9% to € 6.491 bn.

The year 2017 will be significantly defined by various influences exerting an overall impact: These include the trend towards a shrinking market volume for tobacco goods in the core markets and the reduction of business relations with one major customer in Germany. In contrast to this, positive impacts are generated by growth initiatives and transformation programmes. Against this background, Lekkerland expects revenues and a result from operations before financial result at the level of the previous year.