Hruška's supermarkets spent 2025 working for their lenders

Anyone who shops in Ostrava or the towns around it knows the Hruška supermarkets. In the last week of October 2026 the chain's group filed its consolidated accounts for 2025, and they hold the week's sharpest find. Sales rose by 46.9% to CZK 7.6bn. Operating profit came to CZK 65.2m. Interest on the group's debt cost CZK 155m. The shops earned only 0.42× of what the lenders charged, and the year closed with a net loss of CZK 107m, after a net profit of CZK 61.6m in 2024.

Hruška's growth stopped paying for itself

Hruška, spol. s r.o. is a limited liability company (the Czech s.r.o. form) based in Ostrava. Its revenue grew by CZK 2.4bn in a single year. The accounts do not break that jump down into new stores, acquisitions or higher prices. What they do show is that the extra sales came with an even faster rise in costs.

Start at the top. EBITDA is the result from trading before the yearly charge for wear on buildings and equipment. At Hruška it fell from CZK 519m to CZK 365m. On a much bigger turnover, that means the margin before depreciation dropped from 10.0% to 4.8%. Goods, wages, rent or energy rose faster than sales; the accounts do not say which of them.

Then comes depreciation, the cost of stores, fittings and machines spread over their useful life. It rose from CZK 208m to CZK 300m. A retailer whose depreciation climbs like that is carrying more assets than before, whether new shops, refits or equipment.

Put the two together and operating profit fell by 79.0%, from CZK 311m to CZK 65.2m. The operating margin, the share of sales left after running the business, shrank from 6.0% to 0.9%. Put plainly: almost everything customers paid at the tills went straight back out on goods, staff, rent and wear. A grocer can live on thin margins. It cannot live on margins thinner than its loan payments.

The interest bill turned a thin profit into a loss

Interest cover is operating profit divided by interest cost. It tells you how comfortably a business can pay its lenders from what it earns. At Hruška in 2025 the figure was 0.42×. The shops paid part of the interest, and the rest had to come from somewhere else: cash, new borrowing or the owners. That gap is the main reason the year ended with a loss of CZK 107m.

Now run the stress test a lender would run. Make the loans a few points dearer, as happens when floating rates reset. Then take a weaker year in the shops, with operating profit lower than in 2025. Both changes push the cover further below the line where profit pays the interest, and neither is an extreme scenario for a grocer. The rule of thumb is simple: a company whose operating profit covers its interest comfortably can absorb a bad season. A company whose profit does not cover the bill at all pays for every bad month out of its balance sheet.

That balance sheet still has a cushion. Equity stood at CZK 1.8bn, or 37.3% of total assets. The equity ratio actually rose by 4.5 pp, but not because the group got richer: equity fell by CZK 104m, while total assets shrank faster, from CZK 5.9bn to CZK 4.9bn. Cash stayed almost flat at CZK 419m. I would watch the interest line before the sales line. For any business owner, the sum to copy is short: divide your operating profit by your interest cost, then repeat it with dearer loans and a weaker year.

Škoda Transportation

The Plzeň maker of trams, trains and trolleybuses swung from an operating loss of CZK 401m in 2024 to an operating profit of CZK 1.6bn in 2025, on revenue up 5.5% to CZK 29.4bn. Net profit reached CZK 727m, but operating cash flow was CZK -84.4m. In rolling stock, money often sits in half-built vehicles and unpaid instalments for months, so I would call the recovery unpaid for now rather than unreal.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Czech Republic

Toyota's car plant in Kolín closed its financial year at the end of March 2026 with revenue up 2.5% to CZK 78.3bn. Operating profit fell by 68.9% to CZK 883m, a margin of 1.1%. A plant like this sells mainly to its own group, so its profit depends largely on the prices the group pays it, and the accounts do not explain the drop.

Gilead Sciences

The US drugmaker best known for its HIV medicines lifted third-quarter revenue by 6.8% to USD 8.3bn, with an operating margin of 41.7%. Net profit fell by 20.4% to USD 2.4bn, and equity dropped by 39.5% in a year to USD 13.0bn. The business still earns well. The buffer behind it is thinner than a year ago.

Letiště Praha

The operator of Prague's Václav Havel Airport raised its net profit for 2025 by 32.0% to CZK 3.0bn. Equity makes up 89.2% of its balance sheet, so the airport is financed mostly by its owner rather than by lenders. Cash fell by CZK 1.2bn to CZK 3.3bn; the accounts do not show whether it went on investment, dividends or both.

Thin margins sit where the goods are moved

The week does have a pattern, and it runs through the businesses that physically move things: groceries in Ostrava, cars in Kolín, trains in Plzeň. People kept buying from all three, yet profit or cash lagged behind the turnover. The airport, which earns on travellers passing through rather than on goods it has to buy first, had the calm year, and it leans on its owner's money rather than on loans. Hruška shows the sharpest version of the lesson. Sales tell you how many people walked in. Interest cover tells you who the year was really working for, and in 2025 it was the lenders.