SCHIPHOL, The Netherlands—GrandVision N.V. (EURONEXT: GVNV), one of the world’s largest optical retail groups, reported that its first quarter revenue rose by 10.9 percent at constant exchange rates to €913 million, driven by organic growth of 3.3 percent and a 7.6 percent contribution from acquisitions. The group’s comparable growth of 1.9 percent, compared to 4.1 percent in the prior year’s Q1, benefitted from strong growth of 9.8 percent in GrandVision’s Americas & Asia segment, 1.0 percent growth in the G4 segment and 0.1 percent in the Other Europe segment despite the high prior year comparables related to the timing of the Easter holidays and poor weather in Europe, the company said.

Acquisitions, primarily Visilab in Switzerland and Tesco Opticians in the United Kingdom contributed 7.6 percent to revenue growth. Foreign exchange fluctuations, mainly driven by the strengthening of the euro against major currencies, led to a negative impact of 2.9 perceny or €24 million on revenue growth, mainly impacting the Americas and Asia segment.

GrandVision’s adjusted EBITDA increased by 1.0 percent at constant exchange rates to €136 million as strong adjusted EBITDA growth in the Americas and Asia segment was partially offset by lower comparable growth in the significant Northern European countries and integration and rebranding costs of recent acquisitions, the company noted.

GrandVision's store base reduced by 21 stores to 6,980 during the first quarter (7,001 stores at year-end 2017) reflecting the continued optimization of our store footprint. This led to higher store closings than openings, primarily in the Latin America region, in order to enhance the store profitability profile in the
segment. GrandVision said it expects store openings to pick up as the year progresses, in line with the business cycle patterns of previous years.

Stephan Borchert, GrandVision's CEO said, "We are pleased that we started the year with solid comparable growth despite the difficult comparable base of the previous year, and some calendar headwinds as well as adverse weather conditions in parts of Europe.”

He added, “As expected, adjusted EBITDA growth in the quarter was subdued due to the weaker performance of the important Northern European markets, as well as the consolidation and rebranding of the newly acquired Tesco Opticians business in the U.K. We remain confident in achieving our full-year objective of revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth of high single digits at constant exchange rates.”

Borchert said, “During the quarter, we made good progress in the Americas and Asia segment. The strong operatingperformance of our businesses in Mexico, Russia and Turkey helped us to significantly enhance our adjusted EBITDA margin. In addition, we have made further steps in building the right platform for growthin the U.S. and have started to reduce the losses in line with our expectations for the year. Our businesses in Eastern Europe also showed good results with double digit sales growth and even higher adjusted EBITDA growth.”

In the U.S., GrandVision operates For Eyes.