Dufry: organic growth slows; shares fall

(CercleFinance.com) - Airport retailer Dufry said on Friday that its first-half organic growth slowed to 5.
5%, prompting a sell-off of the shares.

The company reported a 7.2% rise in first-half turnover to 4.1 billion Swiss francs.

Like-for-like growth contributed, reaching 3.5%, while net new concessions added 2%, which resulted in an organic growth of 5.5%, the retailer said.

By comparison, for the same period of 2017 Dufry reported an acceleration in organic growth, which reached 8.9% in the first six months of the past year.

"We expect a neutral investor reaction with slowing organic growth being offset by improving cash," UBS said.

However, the shares are currently trading around 5% lower in Zurich today.

Indeed, free cash flow more than doubled, reaching 330.2 million Swiss francs in the first half of 2018, from 127.6 million Swiss francs in the same period last year.

For the rest, half-year results were in line with the targets set for 2018, with EBIT growing by 38.4% to 124.6 million Ssiss francs over the first six months.

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