After two loss -making fiscal years, the Otto retail group has made a profit again.
“We worked very disciplined on the costs,” said Petra Scharner-Wolff’s new chairman of the CEO, Petra Scharner-Wolff.
After taxes, the Hamburg -based group generated a profit of 165 million euros in the past financial year from March 2024 to March this year, as can be seen from a message on Wednesday. In the previous year, the Otto Group had a loss of 412 million euros.
The turnover was not a driver of development, after all, he stagnated at the previous year’s level at 14.9 billion euros. Despite the cloudy consumption mood, the sales of the online platform increased by 5.6 percent to 4.4 billion euros. But other societies in the broadly established group recorded declines. The profit before interest and tax was 276 million euros – after eight million euros in the previous financial year.
Despite the adverse framework, the group relies on further improvements in results
As far as the medium -term prospects are concerned, the group was careful. In view of the “current geopolitical and geo -economy faults” and the resulting uncertainties for global trade and the consumption mood, the Otto Group “is also in an extremely challenging market environment in the current financial year 2025/26,” the company said. A forecast is “even more difficult to make” due to the numerous imponderables.
Nevertheless, management strives for further increases in results. The aim of the group is to “keep its sales revenues stable on a comparable basis and to significantly improve your own profitability with regard to EBIT again,” says a message.
CEO Petra Scharner-Wolff, who has been at the top of the group since the beginning of March, was combative: “We also want to make clear progress in the current financial year,” she said in a statement. “Even if we assume that 2026 and 2027 will be primarily years of consolidation, our overarching goal of further strengthening the resilience and solidity of the Otto Group in order to remain equipped should continue to show volatile.” (dpa/fashionunited)