Kesko's Financial targets and achievements

17.07.2020

We are moving strongly towards our financial targets and better returns on capital employed and equity through growth, increased profitability, synergies and working capital efficiency. Alongside growth, we continue to focus on higher cost-efficiency in all our operations to ensure competitiveness.

Our strong balance sheet enables both investments in strategic growth endeavours as well as good dividend payments. Between 2015 and 2019, we invested €2.4 billion in our business operations and acquitisions, and divested some €1.0 billion worth of non-strategic business operations and real estate.

Organic investments were at their highest in 2017, and are planned to come down to an annual level of €200-250 million. Investments in store sites will decrease, while investments in digitalisation will increase. In future acquisitions, we will aim for economies of scale and improved competitiveness, especially in the building and technical trade division.

Kesko’s new financial targets

The medium-term financial targets for profitability, as approved by the Board of Directors of Kesko Corporation, are a comparable operating margin of 5.0% and a comparable return on capital employed of 11.0%. The profitability targets take into account the impacts of IFRS 16 Leases. In terms of financial position, as before the Group uses interest-bearing net debt/EBITDA and targets a maximum level of 2.5, excluding the impact of IFRS 16.

Indicator	Target	Level achieved in 2019
Comparable operating margin, %	5.0%	4.3%
Comparable return on capital employed, %	11.0%	9.6%
Interest-bearing net debt/EBITDA, excluding the impact of IFRS 16	at maximum 2.5	0.9

Main themes and actions to achieve the financial targets
All business divisions: Customer driven organic growth Improved efficiency Improved cash flow generation Focused capital expenditure: Selected acquisitions Limited store sites expansion needs Further development of digitalisation

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Strategy