Profits improved in the third quarter and guidance upgraded - Seite 3

• Revenue for the first nine months of 2020/21 was up by 11.2%, and underlying like-for-like sales grew by 11.7% year on year. Boosting sales by 18.9%, Health & Wellbeing recorded the strongest 9M sales growth. The number of trading days was unchanged compared with the same period of 2019/20.
• Online sales surged by 100% year on year to make up 24.1% of 9M 2020/21 revenue against 13.4% in the year-earlier period.
• Underlying sales in the Group’s physical stores were down by 1.9% year on year as footfall was adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The 9M 2020/21 gross margin was 43.8% against 44.1% in the year-earlier period. The lower gross margin was attributable to a higher proportion of online sales and to the fact that COVID-19-related articles such as face masks were sold at next to no margins. 
• Overall costs amounted to 23.7% of revenue against 24.5% in 9M 2019/20. Overall costs were up by DKK 52.2 million as a consequence of higher activity and acquisitions, while underlying costs fell as a result of ongoing rationalisation measures.
• EBITDA before special items came to DKK 645.1 million, up from DKK 580.8 million in the year-earlier period. The EBITDA margin before special items was 20.2%, in line with the year-earlier level.
• Cash generated from operations was an inflow of DKK 934.7 million in 9M 2020/21 against an inflow of DKK 446.0 million in 9M 2019/20. The DKK 488.8 million increase was attributable to favourable earnings and working capital developments, in particular a reduction of funds tied up in stock, combined with a small positive impact from the postponed payment of A tax under the government's COVID-19 relief package.

	2020/21	2019/20	2020/21	2019/20
(DKKm)	Q3	Q3	9M	9M
Revenue	1,313.0	1,173.4	3,192.4	2,871.5
Gross profit	575.4	515.1	1,398.0	1,266.6
EBITDA before special items	292.8	263.9	645.1	580.8
EBIT	190.5	165.6	339.8	282.1
Adjusted profit after tax	175.4	137.5	315.2	259.6
Free cash flow	412.5	161.3	739.0	144.8
Revenue growth	11.9%	7.4%	11.2%	5.8%
Underlying like-for-like revenue growth	12.8%	4.7%	11.7%	1.6%
Gross margin	43.8%	43.9%	43.8%	44.1%
EBITDA margin before special items	22.3%	22.5%	20.2%	20.2%
Net interest-bearing debt/EBITDA before special items			2.2	n.a.*

* The number cannot be calculated at 31/12/2019 due to a lack of historical EBITA numbers after IFRS 16 implementation.