DIA cuts losses by 50% in 2022

The international food distribution group DIA, which owns Minipreço in Portugal, managed to slash its losses by a half in 2022.

Portugal represents only 8% of the group’s net food retail sales which it earned from supermarkets in Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. Portugal was also the country in which it has least grown and invested the least in 2022.
In Portugal, Grupo DIA suffered net losses of €20 million, but posted an increase in revenues of 0.5%, to €596 million. Portugal was the only region where no new shops were opened and existing shops were not modernised. In fact it closed 36 stores (7% of its chain of supermarkets).
In terms of investment, the company’s CAPEX was only €5 million in Portugal, compared to the €22 million it had invested in 2021.
Overall, Grupo DIA closed the year with net losses of €124 million, 51.9% less than in 2021 according to its financial report released on Thursday.
Rumours have been circulating that the group owned by the Russian industrial oligarch Mikhail Fridman (LetterOne) is to leave the Portuguese market.
Fridman, who grew up in Ukraine, made his fortune in Russia and moved to London in 2015. The oligarch is said to be close to the Kremlin, which he has always denied.