Johannesburg – Spar Group yesterday declared an interim gross cash dividend of 280 cents per share out of income reserves after swinging into a R1.7 billion profit for six months ended March 31, 2021.
The multinational grocery chain’s dividend rose from 200c last year as it saw its interim profits climbing by 28.1% following strong performances from its operations abroad. This as Spar delivered strong growth, increasing group turnover by 7.5% to R64.2 billion.
The group said the turnover in its operations in Switzerland rose by 11.1% to 21.6% for the six-month period, in spite of the region continuing to experience the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic with ongoing lockdown regulations.
Spar Poland’s turnover during the period grew by 32.2% from 26.9% though the mall-based stores have been significantly impacted by the closure of malls.
Spar’s BWG Foods in Ireland and South West England also delivered strong turnover growth of 13.3% as consumers supported their local community stores during the extended lockdown.
Chief executive Brett Botten said turnover growth slowed significantly in the month of March 2021, as it lapped the extraordinary performance recorded in March 2020, when consumers stocked up in advance of the Covid-19 lockdown.
“Tops at SPAR continued to be negatively impacted by the reduced retail hours and lost trading days, effectively losing 72 trading days, approximately 40 percent of available trading days during this period,” said Botten.
Spar shares closed 0.33% higher at R185.05 on the JSE yesterday.
