EANS-Adhoc: Most successful year in company history for United Internet - Dividend of EUR 0.40 planned
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25.03.2010
Montabaur, March 25, 2010. The Management Board of United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031) today announced the audited consolidated results according to IFRS for the fiscal year 2009. There was a marked improvement in all the Group´s key financial figures compared to the previous year.
Group development
In its fiscal year 2009, consolidated sales of United Internet AG were up 5.6% on the previous year, from EUR 1,570.4 million (comparable prior-year figure after sale and deconsolidation of AdLINK Display Marketing business) to EUR 1,658.9 million. Ordinary earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved by 12.4% from EUR 316.9 million to EUR 356.1 million. Including non-recurring income of EUR 60.6 million from the sale of shares in freenet and Drillisch, EBITDA rose by 31.5% from EUR 316.9 million to EUR 416.7 million. Ordinary earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) grew by 13.5% from EUR 264.3 million to EUR 300.0 million. After consideration of goodwill write-downs of EUR 6.4 million in 2008 and the above mentioned non- recurring income from the sale of investments in 2009, EBIT grew by 39.8% from EUR 257.9 million to EUR 360.6 million. Earnings per share (EPS) increased from EUR -0.52 in the previous year (incl. EUR -1.20 from write-downs on investments and EUR -0.01 from discontinued operations) to EUR 1.22 (including EUR 0.47 from net positive special items and EUR 0.05 from discontinued operations).
|Year-on-year comparison (in EUR |2008 |2009 |Change | |million) | | | | |Sales |1,570.4 |1,658.9 |+ 5.6% | |EBITDA without special items |316.9 |356.1 |+ 12.4% | |EBIT without special items |264.3 |300.0 |+ 13.5% | |EBITDA |316.9 |416.7** |+ 31.5% | |EBIT |257.9* |360.6** |+ 39.8% |
* Incl. negative special items of EUR 6.4 million from goodwill write-downs in the Online Marketing segment
** Incl. positive special items of EUR 60.6 million from sale of shares
|Quarter-on-quarter comparison (in |Q4 2008 |Q4 2009 |Change | |EUR million) | | | | |Sales |405.2 |434.1 |+ 7.1% | |EBITDA without special items |68.0 |87.0 |+ 27.9% | |EBIT without special items |54.5 |70.4 |+ 29.2% | |EBITDA |68.0 |97.4** |+ 43.2% | |EBIT |48.1* |80.8** |+ 68.0% |
* Incl. negative special items of EUR 6.4 million from goodwill write-downs in the Online Marketing segment ** Incl. positive special items of EUR 10.4 million from sale of shares
Dividend
At the Annual Shareholders' Meeting on June 2, 2010, the Management Board will propose a dividend payment of EUR 90 million from the balance sheet profit disclosed for fiscal year 2009. On the basis of 225 million shares with dividend rights at present, this corresponds to EUR 0.40 per share. This dividend comprises a regular amount of EUR 0.20 for 2009 plus a bonus dividend of a further EUR 0.20 for the lack of dividend paid in the previous year due to high write-downs on investments. The Supervisory Board has approved the proposed appropriation of profit.
Segment development
Thanks to a business model based overwhelmingly on electronic subscriptions, the dominant Product segment enjoyed further stronger growth - although the reduced spending of advertising customers was also noticeable in portal marketing during 2009. As expected, the Online Marketing segment was unable to escape the impact of the economic crisis and the resulting fall in advertising spending.
|Year-on-year comparison (in EUR |2008 |2009 |Change | |million) | | | | |Product segment | | | | |Sales |1,432.8 |1,528.1 |+ 6.7% | |EBITDA |298.6 |339.0 |+ 13.5% | |EBIT |248.1 |285.2 |+ 15.0% | |Online Marketing segment | | | | |Sales |136.9 |130.1 |- 5.0% | |EBITDA |11.0 |10.5 |-4.5% | |EBIT |9.2* |8.5 |- 7.6% | * Without negative special items of EUR 6.4 million from goodwill write-downs |Quarter-on-quarter comparison (in |Q4 2008 |Q4 2009 |Change | |EUR million)* | | | | |Products | | | | |Sales |371.1 |405.2 |+ 9.2% | |EBITDA |62.8 |81.0 |+ 29.0% | |EBIT |50.0 |65.1 |+ 30.2% | |Online Marketing (continued | | | | |operations) | | | | |Sales |34.0 |28.7 |-15.6% | |EBITDA |0.3 |3.7 | | |EBIT |-0.2* |3.2 | |
* Without negative special items of EUR 6.4 million from goodwill write-downs
Customer development
Including around 0.58 million freenet DSL customers, the number of fee-based customer contracts grew by 15.1% or 1.2 million contracts to 9.15 million in 2009.
|Customer contracts by product lines|31.12.2008 |30.09.2009 |31.12.2009 | |in million | | | | |Information Management |1.36 |1.52 |1.54 | |Webhosting |3.62 |4.05 |4.14 | |- thereof abroad |1.93 |2.14 |2.22 | |Internet Access |2.97 |3.48 |3.47 | |- thereof DSL |2.82 |3.32 |3.31 | | - thereof DSL complete packages |0.78 |1.69 |1.82 | | - thereof resale-DSL / T-DSL |2.04 |1.63 |1.49 | |Total |7.95 |9.05 |9.15 |
Status 30.09.2009 adjusted for contractually binding freenet customer relations migrated at the end of the year
Outlook
An increase in consolidated sales of approximately 15% is expected for fiscal year 2010.
EBITDA is expected to remain at the high level of 2009 - despite expenses for the current quality drive and high development and marketing costs for new business fields and for further foreign expansion.
In order to fully exploit the identified growth business fields "Mobile Internet" and "Cloud Applications", United Internet will introduce a new segmentation for management and reporting purposes. The former segments, "Products" and "Online Marketing" will be discontinued and replaced from 2010 onward by the segments "Access" and "Applications".
"Access" comprises narrowband, broadband and mobile access products, including the corresponding applications.
"Applications" describes the company´s application business - ad-financed or via subscription fee. These applications include, for example, home pages and e- shops, Personal Information Management applications (e-mail, to-do lists, appointments, addresses), group work, online storage, and office applications. Also included are the operations of Sedo and affilinet.
|Financial figures acc. to new segmentation |31.12.2009 | |(in EUR million) | | |"Access" segment | | |Sales |1,026.7 | |EBITDA |124.1 | |EBIT |118.3 | |"Applications" segment | | |Sales |631.5 | |EBITDA |225.4 | |EBIT |175.4 |
end of announcement euro adhoc --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further inquiry note:
Marcus Schaps
Head of PR
United Internet AG
Elgendorfer Straße 57
56410 Montabaur
Telefon: 02602/96-1076
Telefax: 02602/96-1013
E-Mail: mschaps@united-internet.de
Internet: www.united-internet.de
Branche: Telecommunications Services
ISIN: DE0005089031
WKN: 508903
Index: Midcap Market Index, TecDAX, CDAX, HDAX, Prime All Share,
Technology All Share
Börsen: Frankfurt / regulated dealing/prime standard
Berlin / free trade
Hamburg / free trade
Stuttgart / free trade
Düsseldorf / free trade
Hannover / free trade
München / free trade
Original content of: United Internet AG, transmitted by news aktuell