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DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - The weakness of the Russian ruble and the Turkish lira caused a drop in sales for wholesaler Metro in the summer. For the full fiscal year just ended, the management board now expects operating profit adjusted for special items (adjusted Ebitda) to be in the lower half of the previous target range, the SDax-listed company announced in Düsseldorf on Thursday evening. Accordingly, earnings of just under 1.4 billion euros in fiscal year 2021/2022 are likely to fall by 150 to 225 million euros after adjusting for exchange rate effects. Metro also pointed to higher costs for the security of its computer systems in light of a cyberattack a few months ago.

In the fourth fiscal quarter to the end of September, the Group's earnings fell 1.1 percent year-on-year to 7.9 billion euros. If exchange rates had remained stable, reported profits would have risen by 5.4 percent. For the fiscal year as a whole, the wholesale group thus achieved an unadjusted increase in sales of 2.7 percent to 30.6 billion euros. On average, analysts had expected a somewhat stronger increase./stw/he