Turkey's BIM expands at home, Morocco

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish low-cost retailer BIM said on Thursday it would aim to open 40 stores in Morocco in 2009 and invest 110 million lira in its operations, as it looks to continue its rapid expansion.

Dubbed the "Turkish Aldi", BIM on Wednesday posted a 5.3 percent increase in net profit to 114 million lira in 2008, but the figure failed to meet market expectations, sending its shares down 4.69 percent to 30.5 lira, while Istanbul's index fell 2.53 percent.

Sales rose 43 percent on the year to 4.24 billion lira in 2008, but quarterly net profit looked to be slowing, declining from 25 million lira in the third-quarter of 2008 to 21.4 million lira in the fourth quarter as the company faced higher operating expenses.

"Higher operating expense and financial expense due to foreign exchange loss and interest expenses was the reason for the lower bottom-line in 4Q08 compared to 4Q07," analysts at Is Invest said in a research note.

But they added BIM was the retailer least affected by the economic crisis in Turkey due to its low prices.

The company had previously said global economic turmoil would ultimately benefit hard discounters and it planned to open more stores through 2009 on top of the existing 2,250 shops.

Around half of BIM is publicly-owned and it has attracted much interest among foreign institutional shareholders.

The stock lost around 6.5 percent of its value last year, while the main share index sustained huge losses -- halving in value from the start of 2008.