The trading and service company Otto Group has slipped into the red. The bottom line was a loss of 413 million euros in the 2022/23 financial year (until the end of February), after a profit of a good 1.8 billion euros in the previous year. The largest German online retailer felt the reluctance of the Germans to buy in the past year. Because the group had also ordered too many goods for 2022 after the online boom in the previous year and the warehouses were overflowing, it had to sell many consumer goods at a discount. Accordingly, sales in Germany fell by a good nine percent to nine billion euros in the past 2022/23 financial year. Things went a little better abroad. As a result, the group’s total sales remained almost stable at 16.2 billion euros.
The operating result before interest and taxes (EBIT), on the other hand, collapsed to 22 million euros. In the previous year there was a plus of 677 million euros, mainly due to so-called special effects such as the sale of the French logistics company Mondial Relay. At the end of the current financial year, EBIT should again be in the low three-digit million euro range, which corresponds to five times the most recent operating profit. It cannot be ruled out that the bottom line could be a deficit again in a year.
“The result has priority,” said CEO Alexander Birken. It is to be achieved through lower costs. For example, those for container freight have fallen sharply again. But the Otto Group is also cutting back on staff. A hiring freeze was imposed last October; and 800 employees are affected by the closure of the multichannel retailer Mytoys. The Mytoys brand is only to be continued as a shop-in-shop system and integrated into the Otto platform.