Issue 32 - September 2019
Ongoing Growth Improvement and Expansion of Footprint
)
In the first half of 2019, Dufry’s turnover increased to CHF 4,180.1 million versus CHF 4,097.1 million in the same period in 2018, representing a total growth of 2.0%. Organic growth continued to improve for the third quarter in a row and reached 2.2%. By geography, Asia-Pacific and Middle East continued to perform very well, driven by new concessions. Europe and Africa accelerated, benefitting from a notable recovery in Spain as well as excellent results in the UK and in particular at our Heathrow operation. North America was positive, strongly supported by our duty-paid business, while the division Central and South America remained challenging, but saw improvements in June and July. Our capability to generate free cash flows proved once again to be very resilient, even if comparing to the record levels we reached last year. Our Adjusted operating cash flow reached CHF 409.0 million and the Equity Free Cash Flow came in at CHF 140.4 million for the first semester 2019.
In the first half of 2019, we also succeeded in further expanding our footprint with the acquisition of a 60% participation of RegStaer Vnukovo announced in early June 2019, which will allow us to considerably expand our presence in the Moscow area. The duty-free and duty-paid shops operated by RegStaer at Vnukovo airport generated a sales volume of EUR 58.8 million in FY 2018. This expansion obviously comes on top of the several new shop openings we highlight in the magazine.
Remarkable number of shops refurbished
Attracting customers to the shop and presenting them tempting assortments is the key to our success. This year we have seen a remarkable number of shops being refurbished in the first semester totaling 31,700 m2 of retail space. Among these, it is worth mentioning our latest new generation Store in Buenos Aires with 3,700 m2, Macau with 1,900 m2, Antalya with 1,700 m2, Casablanca with 1,200 m2 as well as 13 shops in Spain covering 11,100 m2 and seven shops in Sweden covering 4,200 m2.
Implementing corporate projects in an agile way
In the first semester, we have launched two important corporate projects – the setup of the Integrated Commercial Platforms and the Retail Excellence Program. Both projects aim at further evolving our business operating model to become more customer centric and focusing on market needs.
The first one aims at responding faster to market demands on a global basis, having commercial platforms serving different countries and divisions thus accelerating the decision making process around assortments, promotions, pricing and supply chain. The second project is expected to drive sales in the stores, by improving customer engagement, in-store communication as well as the intensified use of online and digital technologies.
Both corporate projects have in common that their success depends on the strong and tight collaboration of several teams spread across different locations and having different backgrounds and skill sets. For this purpose, Dufry has now started to use the Agile Project Management (APM) approach, which allows each project to be split into several smaller pieces that can be completed and tested quickly by different teams in different locations. This new way of working based on a high level of collaboration between different functions fits well with our global structure and the need to deliver results quickly. Read the full details in our Key Story and the interview with Nigel Keal respectively.
Thank you for your ongoing support and motivation
I appreciate the motivation and the willingness I see to make the next steps of development, to adapt to the needs of the market and the company and to reach further levels of excellence. I thank you all for this ongoing dedication, and I am looking forward to working with you towards a successful second semester and to achieving our goals.
