Milan, 10 May 2012 - Meeting today, the board of directors of Autogrill S.p.A. (Milan: AGL IM) examined and approved the consolidated results at 31 March 2012.
1st quarter 2012 saw growth in Group sales of 1.2%. Good performance in the airport channel offset contraction in motorway sales, especially in Europe where the effects of the recession on traffic and spending were aggravated by bad weather that seriously limited traffic in February.
The difficulties that characterized the trend in European motorway business, and in Italy in particular, together with persistently high costs of food raw materials in the United States penalized results in the Food & Beverage sector, which saw a limited drop in sales (2.4%) and a significant reduction (31.4% ) in Ebitda.
Travel Retail, on the other hand, continued to enjoy double-digit growth, with revenues up 10.1% and Ebitda up 17.6% . In all the countries where it operates, the sector outperformed the trends in air traffic.
“The signals we saw in the 1st quarter were positive but discontinuous. There was very good growth in sales in the United States, where we count on improving margins too over the year. Travel Retail put in brilliant results, especially in the UK and emerging markets, while Spain slowed down,“ said Autogrill CEO Gianmario Tondato Da Ruos. “The worst effects of the recession were on the motorway business, above all in Italy, which accounts for about 20% of Group sales and where our negative performance affected the consolidated figures."