EANS-Adhoc: freenet AG Executive Board raises EBITDA and FCF Guidance for the
financial year 2012
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ad-hoc disclosure pursuant to section 15 of the WpHG transmitted by euro
adhoc with the aim of a Europe-wide distribution. The issuer is solely
responsible for the content of this announcement.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9-month report
06.11.2012
Büdelsdorf, 6 November 2012 - In today's session, the Executive Board of freenet
AG raised its guidance for the present year, which was published in March 2012
in conjunction with the preliminary figures for 2011. Against the background of
stable ARPUs the Executive Board increased its forecast for EBITDA (earnings
before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to 355 million euros
(original: 340 million euros) and for free cash flow before interest to 255
million euros (original: 240 million euros). At the same time the Executive
Board is expecting Group revenue of 3.0 billion euros for the financial year
2012 (previous year: 3.2 billion euros). This decline is mainly attributable to
lower income from low-margin businesses. The remaining KPIs in the 2012 guidance
are confirmed.
The guidance for 2013 will not be modified, as the budgeting process has not yet
been finalized.
In the third quarter of 2012, freenet AG continued the positive trend of the
first half of the year.
In the first nine months of 2012, freenet AG generated Group EBITDA of 263.2
million euros (Q1-Q3/2011: 246.5 million euros) and free cash flow before
interest of 195.9 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011: 184.3 million euros).
Group revenue in the first nine months of the current financial year came to
2,269.6 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011, adjusted pursuant to IAS 8: 2,405.4 million
euros). At the same time, the Group result increased by 53.4 million euros to
131.2 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011: 77.8 million euros).
During the third quarter of 2012, the number of contract customers increased by
31,100 subscribers, for a total of 5.72 million as of 30 September 2012.
Moreover, the number of mobile communications customers in the no-frills segment
increased by 118,000 to 2.66 million during the quarter under review. This
brings customer ownership up to 8.38 million subscribers at the end of the third
quarter. The total number of mobile communications customers as of 30 September
2012 was 14.31 million.
The complete freenet AG interim report for the third quarter of 2012 will be
available for download shortly at www.freenet-group.de/investor.
Further inquiry note:
freenet AG
Investor Relations
Tel.: +49 (0)40 513 06-778
E-Mail: ir@freenet.ag
end of announcement euro adhoc
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
issuer: freenet AG
Hollerstraße 126
D-24782 Büdelsdorf
phone: +49 (0)4331 691000
mail: ir@freenet.ag
WWW: http://www.freenet-group.de
sector: Telecommunications
ISIN: DE000A0Z2ZZ5
indexes: Midcap Market Index, TecDAX, CDAX, HDAX, Prime All Share,
Technology All Share
stockmarkets: free trade: Hannover, Berlin, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf,
Stuttgart, regulated dealing/prime standard: Frankfurt
language: English