Aug 25 (Reuters) – Australia’s Coles Group reported a better-than-expected annual profit on Tuesday, helped by stable financing cost savings as well as strong margin expansion and performance in the supermarkets business.
The country’s second-largest grocer reported underlying net profit of A$1.26 billion ($900.77 million) for the year ended June 28, compared with A$1.10 billion a year earlier.
That beat a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of A$1.24 billion.
Coles, founded more than a century ago in Melbourne, declared a final dividend of 37 Australian cents per share, up from 32 Australian cents from a year earlier.
Revenue from sales at the Supermarkets division, which accounts for the bulk of the group’s earnings, rose 3.7% from a year ago to A$41.47 billion, but fell short of market expectations of A$41.52 billion.
The grocer said the division’s sales growth for the first eight weeks of the 2027 fiscal year was consistent with the fourth quarter of the 2026 fiscal year.
($1 = 1.3988 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sherin Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)
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