St-Petersburg, Russia; 16 October, 2015– 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 third quarter and nine months ended 30 September 2015.

To view the full press release, click here.

3Q 2015 Operating Highlights:

• Total sales grew 29.3% in 3Q 2015 to Rub 62.8bn (3Q 2014: Rub 48.5bn);
• Like-for-like (“LFL”)[1] sales growth of 8.5% vs.3Q 2014;
• LFL traffic growth of 2.1% combined with a 6.2% increase in LFL ticket;
• Six hypermarkets opened during the third quarter of 2015;
• Total of 149 stores at 30 September 2015, comprising 122 hypermarkets and 27 supermarkets;
• Total selling space increased to 787,804 sq.m. as at 30 September 2015 (+38.3% vs. 30 September 2014); and
• Number of active loyalty cardholders[2] increased to 8.0m (+33% y-o-y) with approximately 90% of transactions in the third quarter made using the loyalty card.

9M 2015 Operating Highlights:

• Total sales grew 32.1% in 9M 2015 to Rub 177.7bn (9M 2014: Rub 134.4bn);
• LFL sales growth of 10.4% vs. 9M 2014;
• LFL traffic growth of 3.7% combined with a 6.4% increase in LFL ticket;
• 14 hypermarkets and three supermarkets opened during the first nine months of 2015.

Material events in 3Q 2015 and after the reported period:

• Lenta issued two tranches of bonds on MoEx for a total amount of Rub 10bn with 10 years maturity and a coupon rate of 12.4%[3] (both tranches rated “BB-“ by Fitch Ratings);
• S&P Ratings Services upgraded the long-term credit rating of Lenta Ltd. and its main operating company Lenta LLC to “BB-“ with a “stable” outlook;
• Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Lenta’s credit rating to “Ba3”, outlook “stable”;
• Lenta acquired three new stores and four land plots from O’KEY Group; one of the acquired stores opened in September and the other two will open before the end of 2015. New stores will be developed on the four land plots to open during 2016-2017.

Lenta’s Chief Executive Officer, Jan Dunning commented:

“In the third quarter of 2015, Lenta again delivered strong growth, with total sales up 29% despite a high base for comparison. Lenta remains well positioned to win in a tough market environment generating strong 8.5% LFL sales and 2% LFL traffic growth despite continuing pressure on consumer incomes and decelerating food inflation. Further adjustments to our offer to meet evolving consumer needs, including intensified tailored promotions, resulted in an acceleration of sales growth in September with double-digit LFL sales growth.

We continued to benefit from effective cost management and further improvements in our supply chain, which together with improved supplier terms enabled us to absorb part of the effect inflation has on our customers without sacrificing profitability.
Returns on investment in new stores have remained consistently strong. Our new store pipeline has also continued to strengthen, enabling us to increase our hypermarket opening target for 2015 to at least 30 stores.

The upgrade of S&P’s credit rating to 'BB-' with a stable outlook, assigned to Lenta in August and upgrade of Moody’s credit rating to “Ba3” with a “stable” outlook in October, reflect our strong operational performance, robust profitability and improved financial position which enable the Company to grow its share of the Russian food retail market.”

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
Òel:+7 (812) 336 39 97
E-mail: yana.mogileva@lenta.com

Instinctif Partners
International Media:
Mark Walter and Saule Jandossova
Òel:+44 (0)20 7457 2020
E-mail: Mark.Walter@instinctif.com

Primum
Russian Media:
Alexandra Semenova and Nikolay Konchurkov
Òel:+7 926 903 9975
E-mail: NKochurkov@primum.ru

To view the full press release, click here.

[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] Cardholders who made at least 2 purchases at Lenta during the 12 months to 30 September, 2015 are considered active
[3] BO-03 series bonds have 2.5 year put option and BO-06 series bonds have 3 years put option