Atria believes in growth in Russia (but now there was growth in Finland)
Jarmo
Lindholm, Executive Vice President Atria
Russia, has told Russian media (see for instance advis.ru,
interfax-russia.ru and formens.org) about what are the company's
future preferences and plans. He
has stated, among several other things, that Atria Russia
aims to EUR 135
million sales already this year. He has also
announced that the company will launch Ridderheims
brand now also in Russia. This launch is just what we
anticipated earlier this year. But achieving annual turnover of EUR 135 million this
year is not an easy task. Current H1 sales figure
is just under EUR 60 million, roughly the
same as last year, when the annual turnover was slightly
more than EUR 125 million.
Atria’s Pit-Product is the clear market leader in St. Petersburg, but of course there are also rivals. One of them is Kronstadt Meat Processing Plant,
which according to vedomosti.ru will seriously try to challenge Pit-Product in the consumer market. It already has a strong
position among the public sector catering, the company's website tells.
Anyway,
there seems to be a bright feel in Atria Russia. Just like on this video
from the sunny River Neva, where Atria Russia’s
corporate event has taken place last year. Juha
Gröhn, CEO Atria Plc, seems
to have been there too, giving
a talk.
Absolutely,
Atria Russia interests many these days, but
in fact, Atria Finland may
just now be even more
interesting to follow.
Quite unexpectedly, Atria Finland’s net sales, compared to the same period last year, jumped about EUR 30 million, that is as much as about 15%. What’s
important, it was not a spike in export but according to Atria’s Interim Report
Q2/2013, growth in
Finland came from retail and catering.
“Net sales and market share strengthened
significantly during the period under review in both retail trade and the Food
Service market.”
Now it is
really a must to look at what the biggest competitor HKScan says about its Q2 sales in Finland. It begins
like this:
“Net sales fell short of the previous year,
mainly because of the planned lower level of campaign and seasonal activities.”
It ends
like this:
“Overall price competition in the domestic market remained high.”
Thus, it appears that Atria's closest
competitor’s tactic has failed and the company has ruined
its own turnover in Finland thoroughly. One might argue that Atria’s
success in Finland was due to HKScan’s bad situational awareness.
 |
Atria
Finland’s and HKScan Finland’s Q2 sales (EUR million) by year.
HKScan has been adjusting its 2012 figures. The company gives this explanation: “The 2012 figures have been restated in
accordance with the changed reporting principle for marketing support
expenses.”
New adjusted figures are used here. |
Indeed it must be said that price competition during the high season does not feel appropriate. However, Atria Finland’s Q2 EBIT of EUR 7,4 million is decent, while HKScan Finland's corresponding EBIT of EUR 0,5 million is an awfully weak result. Extremely important Q3 is now of particular interest. Has the closest competitor changed its tactics? If not, then Atria Finland will win again.
We will discuss
Atria later but on Friday, September 13th, we are going to look at HKScan’s
businesses. Life is nice,
clear blue skies. (Homemade poetry. My new hobby. Pardon me.)
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