<p style="text-indent:0px; line-height:12px;"><span style="font-weight:bold;line-height:130%">Montreal, Quebec</span><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">By Eric Anderson<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">4.25.13</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>Metro, Canada's No. 3 grocer, more than tripled quarterly net earnings after selling its foodservice operation and Discargo division, a convenience store operator, but it warned of a challenging competitive environment.<img src="https://cdn.andnowuknow.com/legacyWriterImages/canada-cropped-image.jpg" alt="April_24_13" />Canadian supermarket chains are facing increased competition in the market due to Target’s Canadian debut, which opened three new Canadian stores last month and plans to have more than 100 by the end of the year.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">"The competitive environment will remain challenging in the coming quarters," Chief Executive Eric La Fleche said in a statement.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Metro's net earnings rose by 281.7% from $96.1 million to$357.5 million.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">The earnings were helped by an after-tax, one-time gain of C$266.4 million related to the sale of nearly half of its stake in Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">EBITDA grew by 7.2% from C$174.6 million to C$180 million.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Sales fell 3 percent to C$2.51 billion. The fall was primarily due to the inclusion of the week preceding Christmas in the first quarter, compared with the second quarter a year earlier.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Sales at established store were flat for the quarter.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Metro operates more than 600 food stores and more than 250 drugstores in Canada. The company has said it plans to repurchase for cancellation up to 1 million of its common shares.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><a class="btn btn-sm btn-primary col-lg-12" style="white-space: normal;" href=" http://metro.ca/en/on/home.html" target="_new">Metro</a></p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
