EANS-News: adesso closes financial year 2012 with favourable fourth quarter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate news transmitted by euro adhoc. The issuer/originator is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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