EANS-News: adesso closes financial year 2012 with favourable fourth quarter
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Subtitle: Forecast for 2013 calls for sales and margin growth
Annual Reports/Earnings Forecast
Dortmund (euro adhoc) - In the consolidated financial statements released today
as part of the annual report, adesso AG confirmed the preliminary figures for
2012 previously published on 8 March 2013. Following a favourable fourth quarter
with sales revenues of EUR 32.7 million and EBITDA of EUR 2.4 million, the
positive developments of the third quarter continued. Unfortunately, the budget
for the year overall could not be fully met. The Executive Board and Supervisory
Board will nevertheless propose the unchanged payment of a dividend of EUR 0.18
per share to the Annual General Meeting.
After adesso first exceeded the EUR 100-million threshold in sales with EUR 106
million in the previous year, sales in 2012 increased by another 14 % to EUR 121
million, with organic growth contributing five percentage points. Organic growth
drivers included the renewed expansion of the business in Switzerland, with
mobile solutions as well as the development of new business units such as
Business Intelligence and Telecommunication. An important step was taken at the
beginning of the second quarter of 2012 with the majority takeover of Arithnea
GmbH. With more than 120 employees, Arithnea has been a fast-growing, profitable
consulting firm in the deployment of e-commerce and content management systems
for years. Its competencies in conjunction with the integrated media agency
constitute an ideal complement to the adesso portfolio. With the exception of
the energy industry, adesso was able to increase sales in all core sectors.
The investments in developing the energy industry segment and in adesso's own
dynamic.suite product family resulted in significant burdens in 2012.
Development of dynamic.suite ceased in the first half of the year. Setting up
new business units along with active recruitment by adesso in Germany led to
reduced average capacity utilisation in the first six months. Earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at EUR 6.7 million
(previous year: EUR 8.6 million) fell short of the budgeted EUR 7.2 to EUR 7.5
million. Most of the annual profit was generated in the second half of the year
with EBITDA of EUR 5.3 million. In particular, high depreciation and
amortisation related to dynamic.suite as well as tax effects led to earnings of
EUR 0.12 per share (previous year: EUR 0.72 per share).
In the interest of a consistent dividend policy, the Executive Board and
Supervisory Board are proposing the distribution of an unchanged high dividend
of EUR 0.18 per share. Both the high level of liquidity at EUR 21.4 million
(previous year: EUR 22.5 million) and the balance sheet structure offer the
flexibility required for this.
For 2013 adesso is forecasting continued growth significantly above the expected
market growth rate. Organic revenues are expected to grow between 7 % and 9 % to
around EUR 130 million. The operating margin should increase to 6 %, which
corresponds to growth of operating earnings from EUR 7.5 million to EUR 8.0
million. A more pronounced budgeted margin increase is offset by investments due
to intense efforts for the internationalisation of business activities with the
product FirstSpirit in the USA, Scandinavia and the UK and by the market entry
of adesso in Turkey.
The annual report and a multi-year overview of the key performance figures in
table form are available at www.adesso-group.de/en/ under the Investor Relations
menu item.
The Executive Board
Further inquiry note:
Martin Möllmann
Manager Investor Relations
Tel.: +49 231 930-9330
E-Mail: ir@adesso.de
end of announcement euro adhoc
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company: adesso AG
Stockholmer Allee 24
D-44269 Dortmund
phone: +49 231 930-9330
FAX: +49 231 930-9331
mail: ir@adesso.de
WWW: http://www.adesso-group.de
sector: Computing & Information Technology
ISIN: DE000A0Z23Q5
indexes: CDAX
stockmarkets: free trade: Berlin, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart,
regulated dealing/general standard: Frankfurt
language: English