OREANDA-NEWS. October 15, 2010. Hypermarket chain Lenta top-management presented their overview of the company growth perspective. Lenta General Director Jan Dunning, Operational director Oleg Buyalskiy, Commercial director for Food Anthony Page, Commercial director for Non-Food Dina Gibson and Head of development and construction department Pavel Sergeev spoke on strategic growth opportunities in 2010-2012.

Lenta LLC General director Jan Dunning said: “I am sure that in such favorable for Lenta moment we will keep and outdo current growth speed. We will continue to invest into three Lenta strategic growth drivers: product offer, prices, logistics. We introduced category management and renewed the assortment by more than 1000 articles in 2010. Prices for the same amount of goods are monitored weekly for keeping the price leader badge. More effective supply chain helped us to raise availability ratio from 87% in September 2009 to 95% in September 2010”.

At the moment the company is managing 37 stores in 17 cities of Russia. Two more stores will be opened till the end of 2010 – in Rostov-on-Don and in Pskov. Corporate plans include construction and launch of 7-8 more stores which will raise total sales square meters by 20%, as well as growing workplaces by roughly the same number.

The management forecasts annual 2010 revenue at around 68 bln roubles. EBITDA forecast is at the level of 6,1 bln roubles, with debt/EBIDTA ratio 1,92.

Jan Dunning added, that hypermarket chain development plan will be reasoned in the first place by customer demand: “Lenta” will focus on federal suppliers and more privileges will be given to our regional management, so it will help us to understand better our consumers and be more closer to them.