St-Petersburg, Russia; 28 January, 2016– Lenta Ltd, (LSE, MOEX: LNTA / “Lenta” or the “Company”) one of the largest retail chains in Russia, is pleased to announce the Company’s consolidated sales and operating results for the fourth quarter and twelve months ended 31 December 2015.

To view the full press release, please click here.

4Q 2015 Operating Highlights:

• Total sales grew 26.2% in 4Q 2015 to Rub 75.1bn (4Q 2014: Rub 59.5bn);
• Like-for-like (“LFL”)[1] sales growth of 6.1% vs. 4Q 2014;
• LFL traffic growth of 4.3% combined with a 1.8% increase in LFL ticket;
• 18 hypermarkets and five supermarkets opened during the fourth quarter of 2015;
• Total store count reached 172 stores as at 31 December 2015, comprising 140 hypermarkets and 32 supermarkets
• Total selling space increased to 882,383 sq.m. as at 31 December 2015[2] (+25.8% vs. 31 December 2014); and
• Number of active loyalty cardholders[3] increased to 8.4m (+29% y-o-y) with approximately 92% of transactions in the fourth quarter made using the loyalty card.

FY 2015 Operating Highlights:

• Total sales grew 30.3% in 2015 to Rub 252.8bn (2014: Rub 194.0bn) in line with the Company’s sales growth guidance;
• LFL sales growth of 9.1% vs. 2014;
• LFL traffic growth of 3.9% combined with a 5.0% increase in LFL ticket; and
• 32 hypermarkets and eight supermarkets opened during 2015 exceeding the Company’s guidance of at least 30 hypermarket openings.

Material events in 4Q 2015 and after the reported period:

• Lenta opened a new distribution center (“DC”) in Yekaterinburg in October - its first DC in the Ural federal district;
• Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Lenta’s credit rating to “Ba3”, outlook “stable”;
• In October 2015 Lenta successfully completed a primary capital increase of 21.1 million new GDRs via an accelerated bookbuild, raising gross proceeds of US$150 million;
• National Rating Agency (NRA) confirmed Lenta’s National Scale Rating at "AŔ" with “positive” outlook;
• Lenta has signed an amendment to Rub 4.6bn loan agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) due December 2022 reducing the margin over 3M MosPrime;
• Lenta signed a Rub 5bn three-year revolving loan facility with Russian Agricultural Bank; and
• Lenta signed a Rub 7bn three-year unsecured loan facility with Rosbank at a fixed rate.

Lenta’s Chief Executive Officer, Jan Dunning commented:

“The fourth quarter of 2015 was the most challenging period of the year – for the industry and for us. We faced a very difficult economic environment and had a busy schedule with a lot of new hypermarket openings and the launch of our supermarket format in Saint-Petersburg. I am delighted to highlight that Lenta’s team managed to open 32 hypermarkets in 2015 with 18 stores opened in the last quarter – this is a record high number of hypermarkets opened by the Company in a single year. We also successfully opened our first four supermarkets in Saint-Petersburg and will extend our geographical footprint while still continuing rolling out this format in Moscow.

The macro and consumer environment remained difficult with increasing pressure on customer incomes and continuing high inflation. Consumers continued trading down focusing on lower volume of purchases, being price-sensitive and promo-oriented. Combined with saving patterns and high base for comparison in the second part of November and December this led to a reduction of average basket size.

Lenta’s pricing and offering proposition, including tailored promotions, continued to be attractive to customers and resulted in strong LFL traffic growth of 4.3% in the fourth quarter – well above the level of the third quarter and the first nine months period of 2015.

As a result, we were able to deliver strong full year sales growth of 30.3% on the back of 25.8% y-o-y selling space growth.

Based on the unaudited management accounts we expect Adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year of 2015 to improve compared to the result of 2014.”

[1] Lenta’s stores are included in the LFL store base starting 12 months after the end of the month in which they are opened [2] After the adjustments to reported selling space described below [3] Cardholders who made at least 2 purchases at Lenta during the 12 months to 31 December, 2015 are considered active.

To view the full press release, please click here.

For further information, please visit www.lentainvestor.com, or contact:

Lenta
Anna Meleshina,
Public Relations & Government Affairs Director
Tel: +7 812 363 28 53
E-mail: anna.meleshina@lenta.com

Yana Mogileva, PR Manager
Ňel:+7 (812) 336 39 97
E-mail: yana.mogileva@lenta.com

David Westover
Senior Director
+44 207 282 2886 desk
+44 7768 897722 mobile
David.westover@citigatedr.co.uk

Marina Zakharova
Director
+44 207 282 1079 desk
+44 7774 256545
Marina.zakharova@citigatedr.co.uk