Germany retail giant Metro Group has said it expects to report higher underlying profits in its new financial year, a forecast that sent its shares rising this morning (12 December).

Reporting results for a shorter, nine-month financial year, which ran until the end of September, Metro booked EBIT before special items of EUR2bn.

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Looking to its new fiscal year, Metro said the EU2bn figure was boosted by EUR300m from real estate sales. Once these proceeds are stripped from the result, the Real hypermarket operator said it expects its EBIT before special items in 2013/14 to “markedly exceed” EUR1.7bn.

Metro also expects to see “a slight rise in overall sales” in its new financial year. The retailer closed its short fiscal period with sales of EUR47.4bn, down 2.2% on the previous year.

Adjusted for changes to its store network, including the sale of Real stores in Russia, Romania and Ukraine, as well as for foreign exchange, sales were up 0.9% at EUR45bn.

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Metro posted a net profit of EUR16m, down from the EUR165m booked for the nine months to September 2012. Excluding one-off items in both periods, Metro ran up a loss of EUR71m in the nine months to this September, compared to a loss of EUR14m in the corresponding period.

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“All sales lines have further driven and consistently implemented their strategies during the short financial year – always with a focus on our primary objective of creating value added for the customer. And we are seeing success: in many countries, we have further extended our market share,” CEO Olaf Koch said.

Shares in Metro were up 1.59% at EUR34.74 11:40 CET.

Click here for the full release from Metro.