Matahari (“Company”; stock code: “LPPF”) continues to demonstrate its commitment to fulfilling the Company’s governance objectives and broader engagement objectives. Matahari is synergizing as much as possible in fulfilling the provisions of Listing Regulation No. 1-E to fulfill the obligation of Annual Public Expose on March 2, 2022, in line with the submission of the 2021 Audited Financial Statements and required materials.
Therefore, the Company is participating in the Public Expose LIVE 2022 organized by the Indonesia Stock Exchange, as an effort to increase literacy and build relationships with the investor community. Public Expose LIVE 2022 will be delivered by a local senior member of Matahari's management team in Bahasa Indonesia for better investor understanding. Matahari sees the importance of providing material and relevant information for shareholders so that they can make the right investment decisions. Terry O'Connor, CEO of Matahari said, "In addition to increasing literacy in the Indonesian capital market, we believe that our participation in this event will increase the local investor base and open wider access and relationships."
Matahari would like to ensure participants understand the strong performance in the first half of 2022. Amidst Omicron-related movement restrictions, the Company managed to generate EBITDA of IDR 1.3 trillion in the first half of 2022, equivalent to the full year EBITDA in 2021. Our core customer product offerings generated healthy margins, with the first half of 2022 gross margin of 36.0%, up from 34.9% in the same quarter last year. At the same time, we started expansion by opening new stores at Plaza Ambarrukmo, Mall Taman Anggrek, and Tangcity Mall, as well as investing in our new POS solution and omni-offering .
The first half progress bodes well for the second half of the year with guidance currently set at EBITDA of Rp2.1 trillion. There were no significant headwinds during the third quarter which should help sales grow more than double on the same period in 2021. The Company is further accelerating its planned store openings with 7 due in the balance of 2022, the next opening being Gowa (South Sulawesi) later this month. This will bring the number of stores traded nationally to 148 by the end of 2022. Terry added, “We will use this new engagement platform to continue to share the improvements in our merchandise offering with customers which will drive better results.”
