DP Poland PLC AGM Trading Update (1407R)

TIDMDPP

RNS Number : 1407R

DP Poland PLC

26 June 2020

DP Poland plc

("DP Poland" or "the Company")

AGM Trading Update

Ahead of today's Annual General Meeting ('AGM'), to be held at 9:00 a.m. BST, DP Poland announces a trading update in respect of the five months ended 31 May 2020. In light of the COVID-19 crisis and the consequent delay to the announcement of its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2019, the Company considers it appropriate to provide a more detailed update on current trading than its usual practice at its AGMs.

Trading in 2020 has started broadly in line with management's expectations. COVID-19 has had relatively little impact on our business in comparison to other businesses in our industry as we have been able to keep open all our stores and our 2 commissaries operating without interruption. As previously reported, from Saturday, 14 March 2020, the Polish government imposed 'lock down' restrictions across the country. As a result, like-for-like ("LFL") System Sales and System Sales were down 14% and 10% respectively for the month of March. However, performance recovered in the following months, with LFL System Sales up by 3% and System Sales up by 6% in each of the months of April and May.

A positive impact of COVID-19 has been a reduction in our food and labour costs and in some of our rent costs. In addition, the recruitment market has improved for us, in terms of both availability of staff and labour costs. However we have also incurred some additional costs, principally in connection with safety and cleaning, across our operations to meet the requirements necessitated by COVID-19 regulations.

Our interactions with the food aggregators, Pyszne.pl (takeaway.com) and our new partner, Glovo, have been positive.

Our focus on customer service is delivering delicious pizzas in less than 25 minutes from order. In one of our stores we achieved a weekly record of delivering pizza in just over 14 minutes from order.

The Directors note that, and as reported by Bloomberg, the Polish economy is perceived to be the most resilient to the pandemic crisis within the European Union. According to EU forecasts, Polish GDP will shrink by 4.3 per cent. in 2020 and this will be the smallest expected drop among all EU countries, Bloomberg noted [1] .

Iwona Olbryś, Chief Executive of DP Poland said:

"These unprecedented times continue to pose an uncertain trading backdrop. As such, we remain unable to provide any guidance for the full year. However, while the COVID-19 crisis presents our industry in Poland with some major obstacles, I believe that we are in a relatively good position, given in particular our focus on delivery and online channels."

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-11/eu-s-most-virus-shielded-member-seen-headed-for-u-shaped-rebound

For Further Information

 
 DP Poland plc                             +44 (0) 20 3393 6954 
 Nick Donaldson, Non-Executive Chairman 
 Iwona Olbryś, CEO 
 
  N+1 Singer - NOMAD and Broker 
 Shaun Dobson / George Tzimas / Iqra 
  Amin                                     +44 (0) 20 7496 3000

Notes for editors

About DP Poland plc

DP Poland, through its wholly owned subsidiary DP Polska S.A., has the exclusive right to develop, operate and sub-franchise Domino's Pizza stores in Poland. There are currently 69 Domino's Pizza stores, 46 corporately managed, (2 of which are under management contract) and 23 sub-franchised.

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