Clas Ohlson heading for Germany

Clas Ohlson is heading for Germany. The Swedish retailer intends to open one or two stores in northern Germany in 2015. They are expected to be located in shopping centres. An online shop for German customers is to be launched in 2014 already. “It’s clear to us that we are coming into a completely new market,” said Klas Balkow, CEO and president of Clas Ohlson, at today’s press conference for the nine-monthly figures. As he explained, there is a lack in German city centres of the kind of offers his company is bringing with it. In the first nine months of the current financial year (May 2013 to January 2014) the company succeeded in growing sales by three per cent to SEK 5.422 bn; the increase came to six per cent more in local currencies. The operating profit rose by 34 per cent in the third quarter, and the after-tax return by 25 per cent to SEK 254 mio. Currently Clas Ohlson has 182 stores in operation, 76 of them in Sweden, 64 in Norway, 30 in Finland and 12 in Britain. It is planning to enter the Dubai market in summer 2014.