The Agrokor food and retail group posted a 16.07 billion kuna (€2.16 billion) revenue over the first eight months of 2018, falling short of expectations. However, earnings before taxes managed to exceed projections, at 1.46 billion kuna (€197 million), a business report compiled by the company's emergency administration released on Thursday said.

The operating profit (EBITDA) exceeded plans by 26 million kuna (€3.5 million), mainly thanks to the group’s retail and wholesale businesses – primarily the Konzum retail chain – and the food business which posted good results during the summer tourism season.

However, consolidated revenues fell short by 1 billion kuna (€134.7 million) below what had been planned.

The report said that in spite of a somewhat lower sales revenue, the better-than-projected earnings were due to lower operating costs and “increased efficiency” in all three of the company’s business sectors.

The company’s Retail sector posted a 351.2 million kuna (€47.3 million) pre-tax income in the period, almost 40 million kuna (€5.4 million) more than planned. Total revenue was 8.97 billion kuna (€1.2 billion), about 620 million (€83.5 million) less than planned.

The Food sector’s operating profit exceeded 1 billion kuna (€134.7 million), or 50 million kuna (€6.7 million) more than planned. Revenue was 5.7 billion kuna (€768 million), about 200 million kuna (€27 million) less than planned.

The Agriculture sector’s operating profit totalled 107.6 million kuna (€14.5 million), or 68.5 million kuna (€9.2 million) less than planned, with revenue nearly 1.4 billion kuna (€188 million), or 170 million kuna (€23 million) less than planned.

(€1 = 7.42 kuna)

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