OREANDA-NEWS  On 07 October was announced, that the Board of Directors of OJSC LSR Group (LSE: LSRG, MICEX, RTS: LSRG) approved the consolidated financial statements for the first half of 2008 prepared in accordance with IFRS. The independent review of the financial statements was carried out by KPMG.
 
In the first half of 2008, LSR Group recorded the following financial results:

- Revenues increased by 53% to USD 940 million.

- EBITDA grew by 83% to USD 243 million and EBITDA margin was up by 4% to 26%.

- Normalised operating profit grew by 89% to USD 205 million.

- Normalised net profit grew by 96% to USD 124 million

- A loss of USD 159 million arising from an investment property revaluation was recognised in the income statement (non-cash item)

- The market value of the real estate and land asset portfolio, according to the independent  valuer DTZ as at 30 June 2008, reached USD 6.6 billion, 17% more than as at 31 December 2007 (approx. USD 5.7 billion).

Chief Executive Officer LSR Group Igor Levit commented:

“We are pleased with the operational results of the first half of 2008 that convincingly demonstrate  the profitable growth of the company and its ability to generate strong operating results. In the first half of this year we continued the execution of our strategy to strengthen our positions in all the segments of our home market of St Petersburg and to expand our presence in other regions that are of key importance for us. In particular, in the Urals, we acquired building materials production  capacities and the leading panel construction company with a dominant market position and also proceeded with the acquisition of a major developer in the region with a sizable land bank.

We continued the execution of our investment programme to enhance the performance, to modernise and to expand the capacity of our business units. This will help us to take full advantage of the opportunities created by the high demand in the infrastructure construction sector now actively developing in Russia.”