secunet stays on its profitable growth track in the first half-year 2008

The consolidated sales of secunet Security Networks AG increased by 30% from Euro 17m in the first half of 2007 to Euro 22.1m in the current year. The main contributor to growth is the business area High Security which provides the high-security technology SINA, mainly to government agencies. Sales rose by 68% here alone in comparison to the previous year. Likewise, sales in the division Business Security which caters to customers from the private sector also increased considerably by 23%. Foreign sales of the secunet corporation remained high as well.
The expense positions have shown varying development. While depreciation reduced (-2%) and personnel expenses grew subproportional to sales (+10%), other operating costs increased by 23% in the first half of 2008 as compared to last year, mainly due to the increase in sales activities.
The fast growing SINA business is based to a great extend on hardware supplies: Accordingly the material expenses in the first six months of 2008 increased by 79% over the last year. Due to the increase in expenses the result before interest and taxes (EBIT) did not grow as much as the sales. The business remains profitable despite high sales expenses. Thus, in the first half of 2008, an EBIT of Euro 0.39m was achieved which is an increase of 5% over the last year’s value (Euro 0.37m). The profit after tax for the first six months of 2008 came to Euro 0.6m as compared to Euro 0.3m during last year. Accordingly the earnings per share doubled from Euro 0.05 to Euro 0.10.  
Even though the cash flow from operational activities is positively influenced by the profits, the decline in accruals and liabilities as well as the creation of receivables act against it. Cash flows from investment and financing activities have a limited impact. In all, the level of cash and cash equivalents in the secunet group reduced by Euro 3.6m in the first half of 2008, as against a reduction of Euro 3.8m in the previous year.
Despite the high utilisation of capacity and speedy order processing - the volume of orders remains high: At Euro 18.9m as on 30 June 2008 it lies 13% above the level of 2007 year end. "The market for state-of-the-art IT security is still a growth market", says Dr. Rainer Baumgart, chairman of the secunet Security Networks AG. "We are in demand for complex security issues, increasingly also at the international level. So the growth outlook for secunet continues to be good."
On the basis of the good half-yearly results and the positive outlook for the second half, the management of secunet Security Networks AG reaffirms its growth forecast for the current business year 2008: At least a double-digit growth in sales and earnings shall be achieved.