Sales slightly up

The French Mr. Bricolage group announces gross sales of € 1.775 bn for 2006. This represents an increase of 2.4 per cent on the previous year. A breakdown of the results shows that the € 1.639 bn share sold by the Mr. Bricolage stores was 2.8 per cent more than the previous year, whereas the Catena neighbourhood outlets experienced a drop of 1.4 per cent to € 135.6 mio. At the end of 2006 the group had a total of 416 Mr. Bricolage stores, 40 of them outside France, with a combined retail area of just on 1 147 000 m² following 19 store openings (+56 692 m² and 14 store extensions (+18 337 m²). The retail area of the 125 Catena stores amounted to 105 600 m² following four openings (+5 347 m²) and six store extensions (+3 373 m²).