Abrau-Dyurso RAS revenues increase 22% in 2013
MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax) - The company group Abrau-Dyurso, a leading producer of champagnes and sparkling wines in Russia, made 4.4 billion rubles in sales revenues to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) last year, 22.2% more than in 2012, when it earned 3.6 billion rubles in profit.
The chairman of the company group's board of directors, Pavel Titov, said during a Tuesday briefing that, compared with 2009, the annual growth of this figure was 36%.
Abrau-Dyurso's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) increased to 1.2 billion rubles in 2013 from 0.8 billion rubles in 2012, net profits to 641.5 million rubles from 322.4 million rubles. Its debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased to 2.4 last year from 3.1 the year before.
Titov said the company shipped 23.5 million bottles of champagnes and sparkling wines last year, 21% more than in 2012.
Abrau-Dyurso judges last year to have been its best from a sales standpoint since the company's founding in 1870.
Titov said, however, that "the company is looking at future prospects more conservatively than at the opportunities present in 2013." He predicted that natural figures will grow 4%-7% this year but that "economic indicators are hard even to guess." He said the reasons lie primarily in the "overall state of the market" and modest growth in citizens' disposable incomes.
The decline in the ruble exchange rate will affect the company's operations since its costs are from 50% to 60% "pegged" to foreign currency, Titov said. But, generally, Titov said, he expects a positive effect. Abrau-Dyurso works mainly in the lower-cost end of the market - 210-460 rubles per bottle. "That is a more [profitable] market [with] less competition," he said.
Markets in the Urals and Siberia will be the most promising for the company's development in the near future, Titov said. "There is enormous potential," he said.