Welcome both to Frankfurt and on the webcast for this year's Analyst and Investor Conference. I would also like to warmly welcome our members of the Board, Albrecht Hornbach, Erich Harsch, and Dr. Joanna Kowalska, the latter for the first time. To begin with, Mr. Albrecht Hornbach is going to give you an overview on the general development of the HORNBACH Group before Erich Harsch is going to share his insights into HORNBACH Baumarkt AG. Following that, Dr. Joanna Kowalska is going to reflect these developments in her figures. Toward the end of the presentations, you have the opportunity of asking questions. This can be done in this room. You will be handed a microphone by my colleague. If you are watching on the webcast, please use the Q&A chat in order to convey your questions to us.
We are going to read them out and answer them up here on the panel. At the beginning of the Q&A session, I am going to give you some more detailed information. Before handing over to Albrecht Hornbach, I would like to briefly point out that this conference is going to be recorded. The conference language in this room is German, but feel free to ask any questions you may have in English on the chat, and we have simultaneous translation and interpretation for the webcast. Toward the end, there will be a transcript of our conference, so you can look it all up in detail. If you participate in this conference, and if you ask any questions, you agree to the corresponding data processing. Please note our disclaimer. It applies to both the presentations and the Q&A session. Now it's my pleasure to hand over to Albrecht Hornbach.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Analyst and Investor Conference of the HORNBACH Group, and I would like to warmly welcome all of you. It's a pleasure to see you here in such large numbers. It's truly a competent circle. I would also like to welcome our participants on the webcast. Many of you have known us for a long time. They have been reporting about us on a regular basis in their analyses, et cetera. We know that in today's fast-paced world, this is anything but a given. In the following, you're in for some beautiful reports, among others, to be given by Dr. Kowalska, our CFO. For the first time, she is going to speak to us in the context of this Analyst and Investor Conference. She's going to share the key performance indicators for the 2025/2026 fiscal year for you.
Mr. Harsch will then explain in detail the developments in our home improvement business for this period. "Change before you have to." This is a well-known quote from Jack Welch, one of the most successful American business executives, as I'm sure you know. In my remarks, I would like to clarify what this means to us as a retail company. As you know, the retail industry in Europe is facing major challenges. The war in the Middle East, the blockage of sea routes, higher commodity and energy prices, these are events over which we, as retailers, have no control. We can take action to improve people's lives. With our product range, our services, and many effective solutions, we want to serve people and help improve the lives of more than 166 million people in nine European countries.
At the same time, we are making positive contributions to value creation. New stores are added every year, most recently in April in Trnava, Slovakia. We are expanding our product range, enhancing our services, and improving processes, always with the goal of providing customers with the best possible support for their home and garden projects. Our success in this endeavor is reflected in the growth in net sales to EUR 6.43 billion in the 2025/2026 fiscal year. This represents a 3.8% increase over the same period last year. This is in line with the forecast published in May 2025. What is particularly encouraging is that this growth is not solely due to expansion, but that we achieved a 2.4% increase on a like-for-like basis as well.
HORNBACH is performing significantly better than the DIY sector as a whole based on figures published by the Industry Association BHB. Our financial results also demonstrate how well-positioned we are as a project partner for DIY enthusiasts, tradespeople, and commercial customers. Despite significantly higher costs, the HORNBACH Group's adjusted EBIT for the fiscal year was EUR 264.7 million, remaining virtually at the previous year's level. Why are we so successful? Because we think of our company from the outside in. Specifically, this means people's needs are the starting point for our actions. We look at our range of services from the outside and ask, "What has changed? What do people really need, and how can we best support them in their projects?" For example, through an innovative product range.
Most importantly for us, as the price leader, how can we offer our products and solutions as affordably as possible? A broad, yet deep product range with high product availability across more than 12,000 sq m of brick-and-mortar retail space, combined with the guarantee of permanently low prices ensures that everyone can afford a beautiful home. All of this comes together to create a seamless shopping experience across all channels. Our online sales contributed 12.7% to the DIY division's total revenue in fiscal year 2025/2026. They rose by 7.1% year-over-year to EUR 771.4 million. Our interconnected retail strategy, which we have been pursuing for more than 15 years now, is a fitting example of the principle change before you have to. The challenges for our logistics, IT, and especially our merchandising are significant.
Fortunately, we have a successful manager on board who is highly respected in the industry, Susanne Jäger. Last December, the supervisory board renewed her appointment to the board of management. Susanne Jäger has been with our company for more than 40 years. She is responsible for a product range comprising hundreds of thousands of items and, together with the teams, she designs many service offerings. In addition to Susanne Jäger, the appointments of Christa Theurer, Jan Hornbach, and Nils Hornbach to the board of management of the Baumarkt AG were renewed in the past fiscal year. With their areas of responsibility, merchandising, operations, e-commerce, logistics, and construction, they form the heart of our company. In addition, we expanded the management board of HORNBACH Management AG, the general partner of HORNBACH Holding AG & Co. KGaA to ensure its future viability.
These changes will take effect when I step down at the end of October. Erich Harsch will become chairman of the Management AG's board of management on November 1st, 2026. He will assume this role in addition to his appointment as chairman of the Baumarkt AG management board. The board will be completed by our CFO, Dr. Joanna Kowalska, who will be responsible for all finance functions as well as audit, legal, compliance, and investor relations. It will also include Jan Hornbach and Nils Hornbach, who will be responsible for the real estate, new markets, specialty retail, and digitalization business units. The appointments of Jan and Nils Hornbach to the board of management are another important step toward generational transition and the family-run future of our HORNBACH Group.
I am very grateful to all our board members for rising to the challenges and shaping our group of companies with such energy and passion. In addition to our home improvement stores, garden centers, and specialty flooring stores, we have a strong presence in the building materials trade through HORNBACH Baustoff Union in southwestern Germany and in France near the border, with a total of 39 locations. This subsidiary accounts for 5% of the group's revenue. With a slight decline in revenue of 1.3% to EUR 352 million net in fiscal year 2025/2026, HORNBACH Baustoff Union continues to be burdened, as expected, by the ongoing weakness in the German construction sector and a reluctance to invest. Nevertheless, this business segment is strategically important to us. With the acquisition of a site in Sankt Wendel, as of March 1st, 2026, we specifically strengthened our regional market position in Saarland.
Ladies and gentlemen, the interplay between continuity on the one hand and a willingness to embrace change and adaptability on the other is essential in our industry. It is not just a matter of approaching innovations with an open mind, but of actively shaping them. I would like to thank our colleagues, all 25,514 colleagues in our Group, for their willingness to do so, as well as for their extraordinary commitment and can-do spirit at work. You all contribute to our successful business performance and to our ability to pay out an undiminished dividend every year for the past 39 years. For the fiscal year 2025/2026, we propose a dividend of EUR 2.40 per share to the annual general meeting of HORNBACH Holding. The payout ratio would thus be 28%, and the amount is the same as in the previous fiscal year.
While investing in new markets and new technologies, we intend to remain true to our approach of paying a dividend at least at the previous year's level. Looking ahead to the current fiscal year, 2026/2027, we remain confident, even though the market environment remains challenging. The DIY market in Europe is highly attractive. Demand is particularly high in Eastern European countries, the overall market situation is favorable. You just have to look at the age structure of residential buildings to see the opportunities, both for affordable alternatives to hiring a tradesperson and for attractive do-it-for-me services. We are therefore consistently pursuing our growth strategy, investing in new locations, digitalization, and operational excellence. In view of the steep increase in commodity prices and based on our calculations, we anticipate total revenue for the current fiscal year, 2026/2027, to be at or slightly above the previous year's level.
We expect adjusted EBIT to remain at the previous year's level. We assure you understand that particularly in light of current challenges, we remain cautious in our forecast this year as well. Although the spring season has gotten off to a promising start so far, we expect that current developments may continue to affect retail demand negatively. Our financial strength contributes to our resilience, enabling us to invest continuously in a store network that currently spans nine countries and will soon expand to 10. We are working ambitiously on the further digitalization of our business model to maintain and expand our strong market position. The use of artificial intelligence and the latest software solutions drives productivity gains that positively impact sales per square meter .
In short, we work on solutions and implement ideas before others do, and that is what I mean by the quote, "Change before you have to." This concludes my remarks. Following the other presentations, we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for your attention. Mr. Harsch will now report on the developments at our HORNBACH Baumarkt AG.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hornbach, for what you've said about our group. Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to extend a very warm welcome to you today. Welcome to our annual press conference. I would now like to join you in reviewing the developments of HORNBACH Baumarkt AG. The key factor in our success is and remains our clear positioning as a reliable partner for both DIY enthusiasts and professional customers, and the emphasis here is on reliability. While many things in our lives are changing rapidly beyond our control, we at HORNBACH aim to provide stability. One's own home, balcony or garden are important havens that one can preserve and personalize. Quite how successfully we have been to offer the right solutions in this respect is shown by the continued growth in our customer numbers. Customer footfall rose by 3% in the past financial year.
It is a key driver of the growth in net sales to EUR 6.1 billion in the past financial year at HORNBACH Baumarkt AG. We're talking about an increase of 4.1%. Adjusted for store size and currency effects, we recorded growth of 2.4%, and the average ticket rose by 0.6%. The productivity of our DIY and garden centers continued to improve overall. The average annual net sale of one of our DIY stores amounted to EUR 34.9 million in the reporting year. We continue to hold a clear lead over other market players in terms of our sales per square meter. Our surface productivity rose by 1.9% to EUR 2,903 net sales per square meter. Market shares were also further expanded.
In the Netherlands, the market share rose to 29.4%, in the Czech Republic to 38.8%, in Switzerland to 15%, in Germany to 15.7%, and in Austria to 17.6%. These are the countries we have reliable figures about from market research companies, et cetera. We don't have corresponding figures for the other national entities. These are all very encouraging results given the subdued economic momentum in Europe and overall significantly better results than those of the industry average. The DIY Industry Association, BHB, and the market research institute GfK have forecast a 1.6% decline in gross sales for large format DIY stores in Germany by 2025. You can see quite how strong we are by a comparison, so this just as a reminder.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the financial year, HORNBACH Baumarkt AG operated 176 stores, 97 DIY and garden centers in Germany, three Bodenhaus specialist flooring stores, and 76 DIY and garden centers in eight other European countries. Four new stores were added in the past year. In the past fiscal year. In March 2025 in Duisburg, in September in Eisenstadt, in Burgenland in Austria, which is the country I come from. In September in Bucharest, in Colentina in Romania. In October, another store followed in Timișoara in Romania, bringing the total to 11 stores in Romania. There was also growth in the Bodenhaus specialist flooring stores. In November, we opened a new specialist flooring store in Mainz-Kastel here in Germany, and previously there had been a DIY store at this location.
We are maintaining this high pace of expansion in the current financial year as well. On the April 22nd, 2026 this year, we opened a new store in Trnava, Slovakia, northeast of the capital Bratislava. With a sales area of 17,600 sq meters, it's a truly large state-of-the-art store. I went there for the opening and it's a really beautiful store. We opened it, and this is the sixth HORNBACH store in Slovakia, as it were. In September 2025, we began construction of a new store in Graz, Austria. Graz will be our third location in Styria. This forward-looking store with a sales area of around 15,000 sq meters is scheduled for completion by the autumn of this year. This marks another significant step in our expansion in Austria.
At the end of March 2026, we were in Sweden in Hedenstorp, in the municipality of Jönköping. We celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for a new DIY and garden center together with representatives from the town. The opening of the ninth store in Sweden is planned for spring 2027. As you know, we're also working on establishing a new national subsidiary. To this end, Matthäus Kubica was appointed country manager for the new HORNBACH company in Serbia last year. He will assume overall responsibility for market entry there. The Serbian DIY market has so far been significantly less dominated by large-scale operators with an international presence. We therefore have favorable conditions in place to proceed in a structured manner and to develop and operate large-scale stores for the country's key urban regions, including Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, and Subotica.
The sites required to achieve very good coverage of the Serbian market have already been secured under contract and are currently in the approval phase. Construction of the first location in the southern part of the capital Belgrade is scheduled to begin in summer 2026. Construction of a further location will follow later, probably in the autumn of 2026. All of the stores in Serbia will be built to the standards of the German Sustainable Building Council, at least the so-called silver category. This means that operations will utilize energy-efficient solutions such as photovoltaics and heat pump technology without the use of fossil fuels. In other words, following the exact same principles by which we develop and build our stores in other national subsidiaries.
In addition to our physical expansion, we are continuously working on expanding our interconnected retail architecture to further enhance the shopping experience for our customers. High performance and scalability are just as much a focus here as all matters relating to IT security, which is of course a topic that's becoming more and more important. Naturally, AI is also used in a wide range of areas. A concrete example is our so-called MACHER Assistent, which helps both colleagues on the shop floor and customers with project advice, preparation and planning, and product selection. It provides comprehensive product information and supports the advisory service. The AI assistant draws on verified information from the HORNBACH systems, so you can trust the data as our suppliers and we invest heavily in good data maintenance. This MACHER Assistent is available to our customers via the HORNBACH app and the online store.
Our staff can use an app on their own devices, on their work smartphones, and the PCs in the stores. New services such as the MACHER Assistent are highly visible and the added value is quite clear. However, we are of course working on further technology projects, for example, to optimize order processing and supply chain management. An important ongoing project remains the migration of the SAP ERP system to S/4HANA, where we aim to reach another milestone by the end of this year. The expansion plans, the technology projects, the further development of our popular own brands, the design of our very extensive product range, negotiations with supplier partners and much more, all of this places great demands on our colleagues.
Given the positive performance in the past financial year, the effort is clearly paying off and we can look back on our achievements and towards the future with optimism. HORNBACH is and remains a reliable partner for customers and their projects and at the same time for the employees of our consortium. On behalf of the entire management board of HORNBACH Baumarkt AG, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of our colleagues for their dedication and commitment. Ladies and gentlemen, as we now turn our attention to the current financial year, we see on the one hand a positive trend in our spring business. At the same time, we are of course also seeing the impact of the war in Ukraine on raw material and energy prices. We have to define clear priorities and once again reliability is key. Firstly, in terms of product supply.
Secondly, regarding price leadership. The promise to be the cheapest supplier and to focus on permanently low prices rather than offering short-term discounts is a matter of course for us, particularly in these times. We ensure stability and consistency in our customers' everyday lives. To this end, we are in constant intensive dialogue and negotiations with the manufacturing industry. We cannot accept unjustified increases in purchase prices as this would undermine our customers' interests. Of course, there are situations these days where things have to change, where this is inevitable. However, our product isn't really the goods themselves, but rather what we aim to achieve is enthusiastic customers, and this is also stated exactly this way in our mission statement.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank the members of the supervisory board for appointing me as Chairman of the Management Board of HORNBACH Management AG with effect from the November 1st, I would like to thank the supervisory board for the trust they have placed in me. I look forward to continuing to work closely with my colleagues on the management board. Now I would like to hand over to our CFO, Dr. Joanna Kowalska. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much, Mr. Harsch. Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to welcome you in person today to my first analyst and investor conference at HORNBACH. My name is Joanna Kowalska, I have been responsible for finance at HORNBACH as CFO since August, 2025. Allow me to say a few words about myself for those who do not yet know me. I began my career at KPMG in auditing and consulting. I spent 17 years at the OBI Group, most recently as Managing Director of Finance and an extended board member. I know the industry firsthand. Numbers and the home improvement industry are practically in my blood. Now I look forward to actively applying this experience as CFO for HORNBACH. What is particularly important to me is taking responsibility, demonstrating integrity and humanity, and building trust. That is what matters to me.
That is what I've experienced in the past nine months at HORNBACH every day. For me, this is proof of the fact that a values-based approach and profitability are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they fit together well, and they mutually enhance each other. Now it is my pleasure to look into the key performance indicators with you. HORNBACH has developed very positively in a very challenging environment, as we all know. What is a particular pleasure to me is that our gross profit rose more steeply than our cost, and this did not come by coincidence. It is the result of increased sales thanks to our highly motivated colleagues in the stores, and our merchandising team too has done a great job. Last but not least, our cost discipline also contributed its share.
In the next 20 minutes, I will look into three questions in particular. First, how did we manage to grow in a very challenging environment? Second, how has this growth impacted our financial figures? Third, looking ahead, what is our forecast? What is our view of the current fiscal year, and what is particularly important to me as the CFO? I'll start with the topic of growth. As we know, geopolitical conditions have had a significant impact on the overall economic and industry-specific environment. 2025 was a challenging year to the European economy. Nevertheless, HORNBACH has managed to grow. How did we manage to do that? Let's take a look first at the highlights we achieved last year. Our customers' trust was clearly reflected in our sales growth.
We were able to increase market share, sales density, and what is particularly important to me is that the gross profit rose more steeply than the cost. How did we get there? We focus on our customers and our core competencies. Our focus is on what we are really good at, and we have had a strong track record in this for many years. That's how we attain our goals. For the past fiscal year, we can say that again, we delivered on our promise. Here we can see the guidance, the forecast we communicated in the previous year, and we achieved it. Group sales went up to EUR 6.4 billion, and this is clearly above the prior year's level and within our communicated bandwidth. For the EBIT, the same thing held true.
We attained our goal, EUR 265 million, only slightly below the previous year's EBIT, representing a decline of 1.8%. Again, this figure is within the forecast range. These figures show our business model works even under challenging conditions. What do our figures for the 2025/2026 fiscal year look like in detail? Let's first look at revenue growth. Consolidated revenue rose by 3.8% in the last fiscal year to a total of EUR 6.4 billion. If we look at HORNBACH Baumarkt's revenue, we can see an increase of 4.0% to EUR 6.8 billion. This is in the central portion of the slide. HORNBACH has thus performed significantly better than the DIY industry as a whole. We benefit greatly from our international focus here.
Sales in our European markets rose by 5.5%. It now accounts for 53% of the group's revenue. Our resilience is thus significantly strengthened by our geographic diversification. We remain firmly committed to this strategic orientation and are consistently driving our international expansion forward. Revenue growth is also reflected in the development of our market shares. Let's take a look at the map here. On the left, we can see our top three regions in terms of market share growth. In the Netherlands, our customers appreciate the high product availability, and our consistently low prices also build trust. Both customer traffic and average ticket value have increased. In the Czech Republic, we were able to further expand our market share too. We can see that in markets such as Germany and Austria, we were also able to gain ground.
You can see this on the right. Our claim is to continue to strengthen and expand our market presence in Europe. For us, this is not just about expansion. It's also about growth within our existing retail spaces. Here too, we were very successful in the last fiscal year. Our like-for-like sales without the newly opened stores rose by 2.4%. Germany showed slight growth of 0.8%, and this goes to show that we are clearly better than the German DIY industry as a whole, which has developed negatively. The other European countries recorded growth of 3.8%. Our top three in this regard are the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. The other countries performed solidly given the prevailing conditions. Like-for-like growth makes us optimistic about the future. Online retail is also contributing to the increase in sales.
Here we see a sales increase of EUR 50 million, which corresponds to 7%. The share of e-commerce in HORNBACH Baumarkt sales rose to 12.7% in the past fiscal year. This means we have been able to sustainably and significantly increase e-commerce sales compared to the pre-pandemic period, and this does not come by coincidence. We pioneered the e-commerce sector in the German DIY industry, and this now pays off. As Mr. Harsch already mentioned, we are particularly proud of our sales density or the sales per sq meter of sales floor or surface. The graph that we can see here illustrates it once more. Our stores have an average of around 12,000 sq meters of retail space, making them larger than those of our competitors.
With sales per square meter of EUR 2,903, we have further improved compared to the previous year and are significantly more efficient than our competitors. Over the past six years, we have increased our sales density by 22%. This underscores the effectiveness of our large format concept built on our core competencies. We are not just performing well in terms of sales. Our gross profit rose by EUR 88 million. Our gross margin improved to 35%. On the right, you can see the cost, which rose by a total of EUR 75 million or 3.8%. A comparison of the charts illustrates that we were able to fully offset the cost increase with the higher gross profit.
Let's now take a look at the costs. Most of it is due to increased costs in stores due to higher wages and additional new stores. The cost ratio, however, remained at a stable 26%. General and admin costs also increased due to higher personnel costs, plus additional costs for our IT infrastructure. Since personnel costs play a significant role to us, I would like to provide a few details on this matter. Total personnel costs rose to EUR 1.2 billion by 4.5%. The increase resulted on the one hand from the planned wage increases and on the other hand from the increase in the number of employees due to newly opened stores. Let's now turn to adjusted EBIT. At EUR 265 million, adjusted EBIT was nearly at the previous year's level.
The difference was no more than EUR 5 million. This is primarily due to a one-time effect from the previous fiscal year. Refunds from the energy price cap in Germany totaling EUR 7 million led to higher other income. As usual, the result was adjusted for non-operating effects, which amounted to EUR 8.5 million in the fiscal year. Like in previous years, these effects stem primarily from the annual impairment test. What is interesting is that on the right-hand side, we see the contributions from Germany and the rest of Europe to adjusted EBIT. Countries outside Germany contributed approximately 76% to the adjusted EBIT figure. Let's now take a look at the cash flow statement. Operating cash flow plays an important role for HORNBACH in terms of our organic expansion strategy. We finance the majority of this strategy from our own cash flow.
Last year again, operating cash flow fully covered investments. The increase in operating cash flow to EUR 375 million is primarily attributable to changes in working capital. Investments, or CapEx, amounted to EUR 220 million in fiscal year 2025/ 2026. They rose compared to the pre-previous year. This is in line with our strategy of organic expansion. EUR 123 million are to be quoted here. Our balance sheet looks solid as well. It increased slightly. The equity ratio rose to 44.5%, underscoring our continued very sound financial position. Net financial debt increased by 5.6%. This is primarily attributable to the renewal of real estate leases. We will continue to manage our debt levels very carefully in the future. At the same time, we will ensure sufficient financial flexibility for further organic growth.
We have already created a very good position and made significant progress in the current fiscal year with regard to optimizing our financing. In the current first quarter, we placed a very successful promissory note loan in the amount of EUR 300 million. We have thus secured early refinancing of a bond maturing in October this year. At the same time, we have smoothed out our maturity profile and made it more balanced by diversifying the maturities. As Mr. Hornbach already explained in his speech, since our IPO in 1987, we have paid a dividend every year, at least at the level of the previous year. For the 2025, 2026 fiscal year, the management board and supervisory board are proposing a dividend of EUR 2.40 per share to the annual general meeting of HORNBACH Holding.
This brings me to the last of my three initial questions. Looking ahead, what is our view on the current fiscal year, and what is particularly important to me, as the CFO, for the future of HORNBACH? We remain convinced of the strength and robustness of our business model and aim for reliable and continuous growth in the coming years as well. In Q1, we expect solid revenue growth, even though the revenue was strong even in the previous year. At the same time, framework conditions remain challenging. Higher purchase prices for some product categories and an increase in logistics costs are likely to impact the retail margin, and a moderate increase in personnel and store operating costs is planned.
Against this backdrop, we remain cautious in our outlook for fiscal year 2026/ 2027. For the HORNBACH Holding Group, we currently expect net sales to be at or slightly above the level of the fiscal year 2025/ 2026, which corresponds to a range of -2% to +6%. We expect adjusted EBIT to be roughly at the previous year's level. This is in line with a range of -5% to +5%. We are going to maintain a high speed of innovation, and this is an expansion, and this is why we expect relatively high investment costs. CapEx is expected to be significantly above the prior year level. As Mr. Hornbach and Mr. Harsch have already explained today, the DIY market in Europe is very attractive. Demand for our product is particularly high in Eastern Europe, and the market situation is favorable.
We intend to capitalize on the good growth potential ahead of us. What role will finance play in this going forward? Ultimately, my goal is to ensure that HORNBACH has the financial strength to make ongoing investments. This will allow us to increase the company's value over the long term. What are our strategic fields of action? Digitalization, profitable growth, and a long-term financial strategy. Growth. What does this mean? Profitable growth is one thing above all else, clear value-driven decisions. Our performance management has been developed both in investment decisions and in cost management. This ensures that we deploy capital where it delivers the greatest value. This brings me to the second area of focus. Digitalization and AI. I see the focus here on process optimization and creating a better basis for decision-making.
My task is to very actively drive change in the finance sector toward a digitalized future-proof finance function. Third, financial strategy. For me, the balance between growth and financial stability is my top priority. How do we achieve this? We actively shape our financial framework, optimize our financing structure, and continuously work toward a balanced maturity profile. A good example of this is the recently placed promissory note loan, which was structured precisely according to these criteria. At the same time, we must continuously manage financial risks to make the best possible use of available funds. A particularly important lever here is a clearly prioritized capital allocation based on strong operating cash flow and our high financial resilience. Together, these provide us with the necessary financial flexibility and stability to actively shape HORNBACH's growth, especially in a challenging environment.
At the same time, we pursue, keep on pursuing our reliable dividend policy. As you can see, we achieved a great deal last year. At the same time we still have a lot ahead of us. We maintain the clear focus on what we are good at, on our strengths, on what has made HORNBACH successful for decades. We in finance will contribute our share as a strategic partner, a co-creator, supporter, and a source of inspiration. There's always work to do. I'm very much looking forward to reporting next year together with my colleagues on the board on all the new developments we have initiated and the progress we have made. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for the very interesting presentations about the last fiscal year and regarding all our guidance. As announced, this is the beginning of the Q&A session. Let me just explain how this works. We will start with questions from people here in the room in Frankfurt. We've got a microphone which we will hand to you so that also those listening online can hear your questions. If you kindly introduced yourselves as well by giving us your name and, who you work for, that would be great. For those who've got a question online, please type your question in the Q&A chat. You are very welcome to also write your question in English. That's not a problem. We will read out the questions on your behalf here and therefore address the CEO and the CFO with your questions.
Is there anybody here in the room with a first question?
Hello. Thomas Maul, DZ Bank. Hello. Thomas Maul, DZ Bank. I've got two questions. In your report, you already mentioned that the start into the spring season wasn't all that bad, but was quite good. Would you elaborate a little bit talking about the footfall and the Baumarkt and how it's developing, whether customers are buying bigger projects after all again. My second question is about the gross margin growth. It looked great last year, the average growth. What's your anticipation of this year's gross profit in this challenging environment that gross profit can outperform the net sales and grow stronger than net sales? What's your expectation?
Let me respond and talk about spring. We've already got the market figures from the first two months of the year, the trend is continuing.
By comparing HORNBACH to the average industry, we are outperforming the industry slightly, and therefore, this trend is continuing also in the second quarter. In line with our guidance that we've communicated, that Ms. Kowalska and Mr. Hornbach gave you, that is in line with our guidance. As far as the assortment and the product basket is concerned, the situation is the following: especially in those assortments which don't depend on the season, because the season products would be garden products, of course, other products, don't depend on a season so strongly, so projects around whatever, electrics projects around the house, et cetera. We had a great start into the year, and the trend has been very positive. May is a little bit problematic because of the two national holidays and therefore two sales days less than prior years May.
Whether we manage to compensate for that remains to be seen. So far, we assume that also in June, and therefore once we'll report on the first quarter, we can report about a very good development indeed. Now you asked about our gross profit and its growth. Well, that's like reading the crystal ball. Nobody knows what will happen in the next months after all. Of course, there are intensive talks we hold with suppliers, and there are quite a few who say that for various reasons, whether it's because of their own production, energy prices or transport, freight costs with higher fuel costs, they want to increase their own prices. This is a request we get from our suppliers very frequently. We try to always verify whether there's a good reason for their price increase request.
In some cases, the reasoning might be understandable, in others, it's not always. Sometimes changes in prices wouldn't have to stay for the long term, but might only be price increases for a certain limited period of time. Our colleagues in merchandising are working intensively with suppliers to find suitable ways forward to negotiate and find solutions which are reasonable and acceptable. Of course, the industry always requests price increases, and then as soon as the situation improves, they're not that quick in reducing prices after all. That's the merchandising colleague's job to deal with suppliers, and we're doing our very best. It's still reading the glass ball a little bit how the remainder of the year will develop. Next question. To be fair, maybe on the other side of the room first.
Berenberg Bank, Michael Heider is my name. I'd like to talk about the gross profit again, because in your presentation, in view of this great outlier of the gross profit last year, you said this was driven by product mix and innovation. Would you elaborate, please, and tell us what type of innovation you were referring to that increased your gross profit and how the product mix has changed? Will this be a permanent change, or was that just luck, so to speak, that last year you were just lucky how your products were sold? Next question relates to CapEx. You expect a significant increase. Would you quantify this, please, a little bit more precisely? Thank you.
Let me answer your first question regarding innovations. What I would like to highlight is that at HORNBACH, we're extremely well-positioned as far as our suppliers are concerned.
Also in the past, always, we've made sure that we've had a very broad basis of suppliers where we would never be dependent on individual suppliers. Talking about the margin in challenging times, if you've got a broad base of suppliers, this allows you to work with different suppliers, and you're not all that dependent on Asia as you would be in many other companies. You asked about the product mix and innovations. Well, what is interesting, I find, is that we are always changing our assortment. 20% of our assortment is changed within the course of one year. In other words, we take a very close look at the market, at the customer demands, what is currently being sold well, and what the best match is. 20% in our market to launch innovative products is a huge amount, I believe.
This has allowed us to achieve this progress in our margin. It's not just the product mix and innovations, but it's certainly also our own brands. Our own brands have been promoted more and more, and even this year it grew by 10%. Certainly our own brands are another very good reason. The second question you asked was around CapEx. This is, of course, because we want to carry on expanding. Organic growth in the next years is what we aim at. Of course, we are investing into our new locations, our new sites. For next year, we've already announced that we're planning further expansions.
It's not just expansion, it's also CapEx, which is needed to invest in existing stores where a lot of cash is generated, in refurbishing the existing stores, in expanding the surfaces, and investing in AI, for example, in IT. We've already talked about AI and quite how important that is, and that also requires CapEx in order to promote our organic growth strategy.
I've got a follow-up question. You just mentioned this, could you give us the order of magnitude? How many suppliers do you have from Asia?
Direct product supply is 5%, but of course, indirect product supply from Asia is higher. What is important is the 5%, which is direct, and the indirect merchandise from Asia is 20% approximately. That surprised me a little bit, to be quite honest, when I joined HORNBACH.
This shows that we are very well-positioned indeed, especially in such difficult times where there are many problems in the supply chain. HORNBACH has always been very farsighted in this strategy. Great question. Thank you for the question.
Jürgen Scheub from [Kepler Cheuvreux] . You mentioned the number of customers that went up last year, Mr. Hornbach. From my understanding, is this an adjusted figure? Adjusted by new store openings, is it on a like-for-like basis or are the new store openings impacting the figure positively? To what degree is this important for the next years for you to acquire new customers? Where do you manage to acquire new customers? If you talked about this briefly? Second question, you talked about the potential in Eastern Europe, mainly, where you said buildings are old, et cetera.
If I take a look at the like-for-like figures last year, these were exactly the stores that didn't perform all that well. Will this performance still happen in future, or why is the like-for-like performance in Eastern Europe not as strong? Last question, Dr. Kowalska, you mentioned how important cash flow is to ensure financing. We've just heard that CapEx is increasing this year. Will there be a positive free cash flow at the end of this fiscal year despite the increased CapEx need? Thank you.
I'll start. Talking about customer numbers, we talked about the number of purchases. It's not a direct link to people, really. It's the number of purchases that have happened in our stores. When we talk about the number of customers, really, it's the number of purchases.
The next question, I assume that like-for-like as well, the number of purchases went up, but certainly also the basket size went up. We talked about this as well. It's both, which is important really. Now, if we take a look at the basket size and the acts of purchase, how many acts of purchase there are, it doesn't really matter whether a customer, you know, shops on various occasions and buys with a smaller basket size or shops not so frequently, but buys many products in the basket. It doesn't really matter. In COVID times, of course, there were basket sizes which were huge and very few acts of purchase because customers didn't come to the store so frequently. These days it's different. I'm not sure.
We'll have to find out whether this is really the same, for like-for-like adjusted figures or whether the basket changes this. I'm not sure. I'd have to check. In Eastern Europe, there have been special developments. For example, VAT changes, VAT went up, and in Romania, we opened many stores. As a result, there's a certain cannibalization effect which has happened, and you can see that in the like-for-like figure. All in all, we're very pleased with the Eastern European development. The market share in the Czech Republic is the highest we have, more than 40% in the spring. We're very happy about that, and this does show that it's a great market and that our market positioning we've acquired there is great as well. You asked a question which Dr. Kowalska should answer.
The cash flow. Exactly.
In times of CapEx, as I announced, where the CapEx is much higher compared to the last years, of course, we have to keep an eye on the right balance between growth and stable financing. We need to strike the right balance between those two factors. How this will develop this year remains to be seen. It's difficult to tell because we do know that operative cash flow, if you achieve the right net sales, and if the gross profit is the way we hope it will be, then of course that would be fantastic. Something we certainly do is try to always improve our performance and not just take a look at our costs, but we always also focus on our working capital, so our inventories.
We've introduced so-called stocks committees, inventory committees, to make sure that we've always got the right products available in our warehouses at the right place, at the right point in time, because that's important for your own cash. How this will look at the end of the year is something I can't really predict exactly today. It remains to be seen. It's difficult to tell. However, we always review very carefully where we invest. Certainly, the CapEx we're spending now is an investment into our future, is a long-term investment.
It might well happen that for one or two years, the trend might be slightly different compared to the CapEx of the last years because, you know, the expansion performed by HORNBACH in the last years, especially in the last five years, was such that we didn't open all that many stores compared to this year and also next year and in the future. I'm not sure whether this was a good answer to your question.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question. Ralf Marinoni, Quirin Privatbank . How do you assess the competition by discounters? Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, is doing advertising for tools. Would you notice something like that? He does advertising for Lidl, for example. Do you notice competition from the discounter?
Second question, we saw this nice chart showing us that approximately 75% of your adjusted EBIT is generated outside of Germany. What does this mean in the long term for your expansion of your store network of new DIY stores? Can we expect that, especially in the long term, you will be opening DIY stores abroad, outside of Germany, where you're not facing such a strong competition as you are in Germany? That would make sense.
Let me take this question. Now, you asked, what about those competitors outside of the DIY stores doing promotional campaigns? Of course, each mosquito, you know, creates itchy skin, but why doesn't this irritate us that strongly?
We are true DIY specialists, so we are not a DIY store attracting customers who want to just buy maybe a drill, a drill machine or whatever, but they want to refurbish their entire bathroom, say. They don't just want to buy a drilling machine. They wouldn't just go to Lidl, for example, if they wanted to refurbish their bathroom. They would still come to us. In the consumer goods area, in retail, discounters are always trying to do some cherry-picking of the various competitors. Certainly, they, Lidl and others are making certain sales, but that's not really attracting our core clients. Our core clients want to implement entire projects in their home. That's why we're not really affected all that much by those campaigns. It might well be that if there's a strong promotional campaign that we might notice it slightly.
To be quite honest, you simply have to live with that and, you know, just not worry too much because what our clients are looking for is more than just one article. They want to implement projects. 75% done abroad and expansionist opportunities is your second question. I've been around and in charge for expansion for a couple of years in our management board at the Baumarkt AG. One thing is the top-down view, the other one is the bottom-up view. What I've learned is that it's always the bottom-up view which counts. The question as to what opportunities arise to open up a new DIY store. In Germany, across the whole of Germany, we don't have a single HORNBACH store in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Pomerania, in Eastern Germany, east of Berlin.
If we want to reach each and every German, there would still be room for improvement in Germany. It's much more difficult in terms of the competition density and also in terms of the permits and approvals. Romanians, for example, are much easier to grant a construction permit than Germans, which is why in Romania we've opened quite a few stores and intend to open more, which we have in the pipeline. In the Netherlands, for example, which has the strongest dynamic development for us. We have opportunities there, and as soon as they will come up, we will certainly use those in a targeted way. Why? Because in the Netherlands, we are in a situation where we offer an advantage in the competition environment because there are not many big -sized DIY stores.
You take a look at the various situations in the individual countries, and you try to use opportunities. In each and every country, you have to be present in the number of locations which are reasonable and make sense for the given country from the point of view of customer supply and being close to consumers. It's always a very reasonable mix of assessment where in a very targeted way you ask yourselves what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. We've got a so-called expansion committee that meets every other week and assesses exactly that, and these colleagues assess where we've got the best opportunities to make progress. Thank you very much. Who's got the next question? More questions here in the room?
Thank you. Thomas Maul, DZ Bank. I have a question concerning Serbia. You said that this was to begin in summer or autumn. What is your plan? When will the stores be ready for selling? When will you start selling? You will start construction in summer or autumn.
Well, we are not so familiar with construction times in a new country that we are not so familiar with. We assume that we will take a year or one and a half or maybe even two years until we can open the store. We believe that in late 2027 or spring 2028 we will be able to open our first store in Serbia.
Sounds good.
Thank you very much.
I have a question from our chat that I'm going to read out here. Christian Bruns from Montega would like to know about the EBIT guidance. He writes, "I'm a bit worried about the pressure on trade margins and retail margins and the logistics prices and commodity price increases due to the Ukraine war. Will your corridor still be attainable?
Well, the question is, will our retail margin shrink in the first place? What will happen in the market? If we get in trouble, I assume others will get into even bigger trouble. Of course, the sales prices will go up if purchase prices go up, and this has been clearly observable in the food retail sector. What will be the actual pressure on the retail margin? We have to look at both the purchasing side and the sales price side, and I trust our merchandising colleagues that they will have a healthy view on this matter.
The other question is, if, for instance, we had higher purchase prices and maintained the same sales price, but thereby we would remain more affordable than our competitors who are forced to raise their sales prices, the customers would come flowing to us, and that would in turn increase our sales and the overall margin in Euros. It's not just a percentage figure, it's also an absolute figure in terms of Euros. This is part of the crystal ball experience. This is what we will experience in the next months. We will, of course, act according to what we see happen, and we assume we are quite confident that we will be successful in doing so.
Any more questions in the audience on site? I can't see any further questions in the chat. Doesn't seem to be the case, so I would like to thank you very much for your participation in the Analyst and Investor Conference 2026. You can see the upcoming conferences we will participate in, so we may actually meet at a Capital Market Day in the next few weeks. If in the follow-up to this event or later on you have any questions, please turn to the investor relations team, and we will do our best to help you. Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day, and thank you very much for your attention.