Russia's X5 says core profit dented by bonuses

(Adds details of bonus payments, context, analyst comment, share price)

MOSCOW, March 21 (Reuters) - Russia's second-biggest food retailer X5 said on Monday its core earnings dipped in the fourth quarter as it paid out bonuses to top executives to reward a improving operating performance.

X5, which lost market leadership to Magnit in 2013, was focused on catching up during 2015, having reshuffled top management and relaunched its key formats.

Its revenue rose by 27.6 percent in 2015, the firm's fastest growth since 2011, after an 18.6 percent increase in 2014. Still, having turned over 808.8 billion roubles ($11.9 billion) last year, X5 lags Magnit which made 951 billion roubles in sales.

Accrued long-term incentive and exit payments, including to former CEO Stephan DuCharme, currently board chairman, totalled 3.6 billion roubles in the fourth quarter after certain targets were met or exceeded, X5 said in a quarterly results statement.

Fourth-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) slipped 0.3 percent year-on-year to 13.5 billion roubles, resulting in the EBITDA margin dropping to 5.8 percent from 7.4 percent a year earlier.

Adjusted for the incentive and exit payments, EBITDA rose 28.2 percent to 17.5 billion roubles and the adjusted margin edged up to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent, X5 said.

"Despite the acceleration in revenue growth rates, we note that the company's prime objective, regaining its leadership of the Russian food retail market, was not achieved," said Maria Kolbina, analyst at Russia-based VTB Capital.

"Our models for Magnit and X5 indicate that this target is not achievable through organic expansion, further strengthening X5's focus as runner up (an 18 percent gap in 2015) on mergers and acquisitions," Kolbina added.

X5 Chief Executive Igor Shekhterman, who took over from DuCharme in November, said on a conference call the company was still committed to becoming the leading food retailer in Russia and doubling its business in 3-4 years.

He gave no sales growth guidance for 2016, saying only the company was well placed to continue growing revenue as it planned to add 600,000 square metres of net selling space this year by opening new stores.

In the year-to-date, X5's net retail sales were up by around 28 percent, year-on-year, and like-for-like sales were up around 9 percent, Shekhterman said.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in X5, 47.9 percent owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, were down 1.6 percent by 1625 GMT. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Susan Thomas and Mark Potter)