- Dividend proposal to shareholders’ meeting of 0.80 € per share (0.60 € in previous year)
- First quarter confirms expected EBT growth of around 50 % in 2003/04 financial year
- Rules of procedure revised to comply with German Corporate Governance Code
Freudenstadt, 19 January 2004 – schlott gruppe AG’s supervisory board has examined and approved the company’s annual accounts statement for the 2002/2003 financial year at its meeting on 16 January 2004. schlott gruppe’s provisional figures reported back in October are thereby confirmed.
With total turnover amounting to 613.7 million € (349.9 million € in previous year), the Group generated an EBIT – earnings before interest and tax - of 25.6 million € (7.8 million € in previous year). The EBT stood at 12.9 million € (0.4 million € in previous year), net profit at 4.7 million € (-0.5 million € in previous year) and earnings per share at 0.76 € (-0.09 € in previous year). The difference of one percent vis-à-vis the provisionally re-ported sales of 620 million € resulted from the consolidation carried out in connection with the year-end accounts. Previous year’s figures are not comparable for several reasons – due to the short financial year (nine months) in 2002 the seasonally strong fourth cal-endar quarter was not included; additionally, one-off optimisation costs were incurred; moreover, broschek gruppe was consolidated for the first time from the beginning of 2002/03.
Both the supervisory board and the management board agree on proposing a dividend of 0.80 € per share to the shareholders’ meeting. In so doing, schlott gruppe is continuing with its shareholder-oriented dividend policy even in economically difficult times.
The proposed dividend underlines the confidence both the supervisory and the manage-ment board have in schlott gruppe’s extremely favourable prospects. In the current 2003/04 financial year the reinforced earnings power of schlott gruppe will become visible for the first time after the company has completed its optimisation programme. The addi-tional revenue generated by the now again fully available machine capacities in gravure printing meet with a meanwhile significantly reduced fixed cost base. The EBT is therefore expected to rise extremely strongly by some 50% to around 20 million €.
An even sharper increase in profit per share is anticipated due to the fact that subsidiary company losses that cannot be offset are no longer expected to be a factor. Such costs had hitherto impacted negatively on the tax quota.
The Group’s financial strength will become even more visible with a positive free cash flow after dividend. A level of around 30 million € is being forecasted for this financial year, thereby signalling a reduction in debts and strengthening the balance sheet.
The recently completed first quarter (October to December) confirms these expectations. The Group was able to realise the high level of capacity utilisation forecasted for this quar-ter at the end of October. Moreover, the supervisory board has approved the revised rules of procedure governing both its own and the management board’s activities. The discrepancies in terms of the age limits of members of the given bodies as described in the declaration of compliance of 29 December 2003 no longer apply therefore. In future, the age limit for members of the management board is 65 and that of members of the supervisory board 70.
The annual statement of accounts will be presented in full at the balance sheet and analysts’ conference on 29 January.
