Growth for Mr. Bricolage

The French DIY retail group Mr. Bricolage was able to increase gross sales by 6.0 per cent to € 1.418 bn in the first nine months of the 2007 financial year. The group announced 6.7 per cent sales growth to € 1.319 bn for the Mr. Bricolage trading format. The like-for-like increase in France amounted to 5.9 per cent over last year’s level. By contrast, Catena made negative progress, with sales down 2.7 per cent to € 98.6 mio. The number of Mr. Bricolage stores came to 411 at the end of September after 7 new openings (+26 177 m²) and 18 store extensions (+34 600 m²). Retail area expanded by 2.8 per cent overall to 1.179 mio m². The group has announced that Catena now has a total of 123 stores, following 2 new openings and 2 extensions (+3 800 m²) and 4 closures. Combined retail area went down by 0.9 per cent to 105 000 m².