OREANDA-NEWS. Lenta Ltd (“Lenta” or the “Company”), one of the largest retail chains in Russia, today announces its audited consolidated IFRS results for the year ending December 31, 2012, together with comparative audited IFRS results for the years ending December 31, 2010 and 2011. Lenta Ltd expects to publish IFRS financial statements for the half year ending June 30, 2013 in early October.

FY 2012 Financial Highlights:

Total Sales grew 22.4% to RUB 109.9bn (2011: RUB 89.8bn);

Gross margin of 20.6% (+2.0p.p. vs. 2011);

SG&A decreased to 12.3% as a percentage of sales (-0.2p.p. vs. 2011);

Adjusted EBITDA1 of RUB 12.7bn, up 40.1% y-o-y (2011: RUB 9.1bn);

Adjusted EBITDA1 margin up 1.5 p.p. to 11.6% in 2012 (2011: 10.1%);

Net cash generated from operating activities before net interest paid of RUB 12.3bn, up 44.4% y-o-y (2011: RUB 8.5bn);

Net Profit2 of RUB 5.1bn, a more than threefold increase (2011: RUB 1.7bn); and

Investments of RUB 15.0bn, almost 4 times higher than 2011, driven by new store openings.

FY 2012 Operational Highlights:

14 new stores (hypermarkets) opened in 2012;

Total number of stores reached 56 and selling space exceeded 376,000 sq.m. as at 31 December 2012 (+31.0% vs. 31 December 2011);

Like-for-like sales (“LFL”) increased 13.5% vs. 20113; and

2012 average ticket of RUB 1,061 (2011: RUB 971).

1 Adjusted EBITDA is reported EBITDA as set out in Note 6 of the IFRS financial statements adjusted for non-recurring items such as changes in accounting estimates and one-off non-operating costs

2 Net Profit equates to “Profit for the year” in the IFRS Financial Statements

3 Lenta's stores are included in the LFL store base starting 12 months after the end of the month they are opened

Lenta's Chief Executive Officer, Jan Dunning said:

“Lenta continues to generate high levels of growth and profitability, due to our attractive customer proposition, increased pace of expansion and highly efficient supply chain. The significant growth in our top line for 2012 is due to a combination of the acceleration in store openings and market-leading like-for-like sales growth.

Encouraged by our strong results, we are committing greater resources to increase the pace of our expansion so as to allow more consumers access to the Lenta offer. We expect our sales to grow further as our store base expands, and our like-for-like sales growth rate to benefit as our newly-opened stores mature. This planned acceleration in openings is starting to come through: having opened 3 new stores in each of 2010 and 2011, Lenta opened 14 new stores in 2012. In 2013, we plan to open at least 18 new hypermarkets as well as 7-10 supermarkets as part of a pilot scheme in Moscow, which combined are expected to result in at least a 30% year-on-year increase in our selling space in the year. We are planning to further accelerate our new store openings in 2014.

Lenta is led by a strong management team that combines an extensive international track record with deep operational experience in Russia. The team has worked together to reinforce our price positioning, strengthen our promotional activities, improve our assortment and implement higher operational standards, all of which have supported our strong sales performance.”