By Ian Walker
Royal Ahold Delhaize NV on Wednesday raised its full-year guidance after reporting a 12% rise in second-quarter net profit–beating consensus forecasts–as it benefited from increased market share and strong customer loyalty.
The Dutch grocer /zigman2/quotes/201849038/delayed NL:AD -0.90% added that it no longer plans an initial public offering of Bol.com given the current equity market conditions, but will revisit the plan when conditions improve.
Royal Ahold made a net profit for the quarter of 603 million euros ($615.9 million), compared with EUR540 million for the year-earlier period and a consensus of EUR534 million, taken from the company’s website and based on 13 analysts’ forecasts.
Net sales rose to EUR21.45 billion from EUR18.65 billion the prior year, a rise of 6.4% on a constant-exchange basis. This compares with a consensus of EUR21.04 billion, according to a company-compiled consensus of 16 analysts’ estimates.
Like-for-like U.S. net sales rose 7.7%, while European sales climbed 4.2%, the company said.
Quarterly underlying earnings per share–which strips out exceptional and other one-off items–rose to 59 European cents from 53 cents, up 1.8% on a constant-exchange basis, it said.
For the year ahead, the company expects mid-single-digit underlying earnings-per-share growth, up from previous guidance of matching 2021’s EUR2.19.
The board has declared an interim dividend of 46 cents a share, up from 43 cents.
Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com
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