Russia’s biggest food retailer, Magnit, reported on Tuesday a 1.2-percent year-on-year fall in first-quarter net profit due to a weaker ruble.
The company said net income was $199.9 million compared with $202.4 million in the first quarter of 2013, while in ruble terms profit rose 13.5 percent.
Magnit also said its margin on the basis of earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid to 9.1 percent from 9.3 percent the year earlier as it started to cut prices in the middle of the first quarter.
Magnit may increase its dividend payout in the second half of the year, CEO Sergei Galitsky said on Tuesday.
“We currently pay about 30 percent [of net profit in dividends]. In the second half we plan to increase that to 40 percent of net profit,” Galitsky said.
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