„In the third quarter we successfully focussed our management capacities on secunet’s growth,“ said Dr. Rainer Baumgart, CEO of secunet. „We realised the substantial growth in revenues by utilizing existing business relationships and by acquiring new customers. At the same time we benefit from the network of our new major shareholder Giesecke & Devrient.“
The strong revenues growth supported by the efforts to reduce and control costs led to a turnaround in the earnings development. Thus secunet generated in the third quarter earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of approximately € 0.6 million. The profit after taxes in the third quarter amounted to just under € 0.4 million. Looking at the first nine months as a whole shows also a positive development. The company was able to cut its operating loss in half from over € 1.2 million as of 30 June 2004 to just under € 0.6 million as of 30 September 2004.
„We achieved the turnaround in earnings development in the third quarter despite the still remaining burden of integrating Secartis,“ comments Baumgart. „On the cost side we are able to realize efficiency gains already in the short run by streamlining the administrative functions of Secartis. We expect the sales synergies of the merger to show their full impact in the next year.”
The financial result of secunet was positive (January to September 2004: € 45 thsd.), because secunet did not take out any loans. Taking this and taxes (€ 166 thsd.) into account, secunet recorded a net result of minus € 0.4 million in the first nine months of fiscal year 2004 (January to September 2003: minus € 0.8 million). Earnings per share were minus € 0.06 (January to September 2003: minus € 0.12). The net result in the third quarter of 2004 amounts to € 0.4 million (Q3 2003: minus € 0.3 million); earnings per share for the third quarter of 2004 were € 0.06 (third quarter of 2003: minus € 0.05).
As of 30 September 2004 cash and cash equivalents amounted to € 1.9 million, up almost € 0.4 million compared to 30 June 2004. As of 30 September 2004, the equity ratio of secunet is 57 %, which is an improvement of two percentage points compared to 30 June 2004.
Orders on hand have been considerably increased in the third quarter. As of 30 September 2004, secunet had orders on hand worth €17.8 million. Hence orders on hand nearly tripled compared with the previous year figure (€ 6.3 million).
Due to the successful third quarter and the ongoing high orders on hand figure the management abides by its previously announced forecast for the fiscal year 2004: revenues in a range of € 25 to 30 million with a balanced result.
