DIA’s attains a 2009 operating profit of 115.3 million Euros in Spain

DIA’s operating profit in Spain reached 115.3 million Euros, which is 7.4% less than the previous financial year. The 2009 after-tax profit was 151.9 million Euros, a decrease of 11.8%.

DIA Spain achieved net sales of 4,120 million Euros. Despite a 1.6% increase in product units, the significant effect of the deflation experienced throughout the last financial year led to the turnover being 1.8% lower than in 2008.

At the close of the year, DIA operated a network of 2,815 stores in Spain, including 1,929 own stores and 886 franchises, with a workforce of 20,879 employees, of which more than 90% have permanent contracts, and together they serve the company’s more than 12.5 million customers.

During 2009, DIA Spain continued with the process of reconverting its stores to the new DIA Market and DIA Maxi formats, and today more than 1,120 Spanish stores are already operating under these formats.

At the close of 2009, DIA had 673 DIA Market stores in Spain, of which 25 were operating as franchises. The objective for 2010 is to reach 1,012 DIA Market stores, with 250 franchises operating under this format. With respect to DIA Maxi, last year closed with 475 stores and this figure is expected to reach 492 at the end of this year.

On an international level, DIA attained 2009 gross sales of more than 10,515 million Euros, which was an increase of 0.7% at a constant exchange rate, however, at the current exchange rate this implied a decrease of 0.4% with respect to the previous year.

During June 2010, DIA is beginning to transfer its Madrid headquarters to new central offices in the Tripark Business Park situated in Las Rozas, Madrid, a consolidated, well communicated area in which numerous large companies are already located.