OREANDA-NEWS. October 31, 2011. OJSC "Magnit" (the "Company"; RTS, MICEX and LSE: MGNT) is pleased to announce its unaudited 9M 2011 financial results prepared in accordance with IFRS2.

During 9M 2011 the Company added (net) 712 stores (591 convenience stores, 25 hypermarkets and 96 cosmetics stores) and increased its selling space by 40.23% in comparison to 9M 2010 from 1,241.09 thousand sq. m. to 1,740.42 thousand sq. m. The total store base as of September 30, 2011 reached 4,767 stores (4,593 convenience stores, 76 hypermarkets and 98 cosmetics stores).

Revenue in rubles increased by 46% YoY from 164,512.49 million RUR in 9M 2010 to 240,181.59 million RUR in 9M 2011. The top line growth was due to an increase in selling space as well as to a 14.29% increase of like-for-like sales (excl. VAT). Revenue growth in dollar terms amounted to 53.54%: from USD  5,437.75 million to USD  8,349.38 million.3

Gross margin grew from 22.30% in 9M 2010 to 23.40% in 9M 2011. Gross profit in rubles increased by 53.20% from 36,687.96 million RUR (USD  1,212.67 million) to 56,205.28 million RUR (USD  1,953.85 million).

EBITDA increased by 30.60% from 13,236.76 million RUR (USD  437.52 million) in 9M 2010 to 17,287.04 million RUR (USD  600.95 million) in 9M 2011. EBITDA margin in 9M 2011 amounted to 7.20% which is 0.85% below the figure of 9M 2010 (8.05%).

9M 2011 net income decreased by 2.66% and amounted to 6,979.03 million RUR (USD  242.61 million) vs. 7,169.41 million RUR (USD  236.98 million) in 9M 2010.

Sergey Galitskiy, the Company's CEO, provided the following comments on the published results:

"Quick changes of efficiency are not possible in companies with a great number of management points. Third quarter results are the benefit of our work throughout the period from the beginning of the year when we noticed negative EBITDA margin trends. One-off (50 bp) as well as regular improvements of commercial terms enabled us to achieve good third quarter results. We have drawn conclusions from the mistakes of the last year and the beginning of this year and will continue to focus on operational efficiency. At that we would like to note that quick growth remains the priority of our expansion. Besides, we would like to draw investors' attention to the fact that rapid-growing companies cannot have EBITDA margin comparable to companies with lower growth rates. We would like this to be considered by the market participants".