ADRNY Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize NV (QX)

By Ian Walker

Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize NV on Wednesday raised its full-year guidance and said it plans to start a new 1 billion-euro ($1.17 billion) share buyback program, despite reporting a large fall in third quarter net profit due to higher costs.

The Netherlands-based owner of grocery chains such as Stop & Shop and Giant Food made a net profit for the quarter of EUR68 million compared with EUR453 million for the same period last year.

Ahold said Covid-19 related costs in the quarter were EUR140 million.

Underlying earnings per share--one of the company's key metrics that strips out exceptional and other one-off items--rose to 50 European cents a share compared with 44 cents for the third quarter of 2019.

Ahold said it now expects to report high-20% growth in underlying EPS. It raised guidance in August to low-to-mid 20% underlying EPS growth, from mid-single-digit range earlier this year.

Net sales for the quarter rose to EUR17.83 billion from EUR16.69 billion a year before, the company said. In the U.S. comparable sales excluding fuel were up 12% in the quarter, while European sales were up 7.5%, Ahold Delhaize said.

Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 04, 2020 02:25 ET (07:25 GMT)

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