Ad-hoc | 12 November 2003 07:46

GRENKELEASING AG english

GRENKELEASING reports double-digit earnings growth Ad-hoc-announcement transmitted by DGAP. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. ——————————————————————————– Baden-Baden, November 12, 2003: GRENKELEASING posts earnings before taxes of EUR 21.8m for the first nine months of 2003. This means an increase of 24 percent against last year’s comparable of EUR 17.6m. After-tax profits increased by 25 percent to EUR 13.5m (compared to EUR 10.8m over the same period of the previous year). DVFA earnings per share rose from EUR 0.80 to EUR 1. As already reported in advance, the company’s new business (i.e. the total acquisition costs of newly purchased leased assets) rose by 10 percent in the first nine months of 2003. The volume of new business came to EUR 220m (first nine months of 2002: EUR 200m). The margin of new business (contribution margin 1), from which the financial result over the life of a contract is derived and which is thus a key indicator of profitability, grew correspondingly to EUR 24.4m, as compared to a figure of EUR 20.1m in the previous year, thus increasingly superproportionally by 21 percent. The company’s new business rose superproportionally by 16 percent in Germany over the first nine months of the year. Our foreign subsidiaries currently contribute 22 percent to our new business. The full nine months report for 2003 is available under www.grenkeleasing.de – Investor Relations – Financial Data. The Executive Board Should you have any queries, please contact: GRENKELEASING AG, Neuer Markt 2, 76532 Baden-Baden Renate Hauss Tel: +49-7221/5007-204 / Fax: +49- 7221/5007-112 E mail: investor@grenkeleasing.de Internet: http://www.grenkeleasing.de end of ad-hoc-announcement (c)DGAP 12.11.2003 Issuer’s information/explanatory remarks concerning this ad-hoc-announcement: “The group’s earnings position improved superproportionally in the first nine months of the year. We are confident of achieving strong profit growth for the full year – even if the percentage profit growth in Q4 is expected to be somewhat lower due to a basis effect,” explains Wolfgang Grenke, Chairman of the Executive Board. He went on to say that this added substance to the company’s self-set target of achieving double-digit growth again this year, with risk minimisation and profitability still having priority over pure volume growth. The group recorded 67,320 leasing enquiries in the first nine months of 2003, leading to the generation of 32,529 leasing contracts. The average value per concluded contract came to EUR 6,752 and is thus slightly lower than in the previous year. The number of employees at the end of the period covered by the interim report came to 265 against 279 in the previous year (excluding the Executive Board). GRENKELEASING is represented in 20 cities throughout Germany. In London and Posen the twelfth and thirteenth foreign locations were opened, giving the company an operational basis in ten European countries. In addition to its four French branch offices, it has one subsidiary each in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The start-up in Sweden is planned for Q4 of this year. In addition to this, its financing subsidiaries began their operations in Ireland. In the UK and Poland GRENKELEASING is using a franchise system to limit the costs during the start-up phase and nevertheless achieve a high degree of identification with the strategic targets of the group among the newly employed workers who are located there. This means that GRENKELEASING AG does not have a direct stake in the locally operating company and instead provides the know-how, the operating infrastructures, and services within the scope of a franchise agreement. GRENKELEASING AG is Germany’s nationwide market leader in small-ticket IT leasing, i.e. for products such as PC’s, notebooks, copiers, printers, or software up to an acquisition value of EUR 25,000. GRENKELEASING AG is listed in the Prime Standard segment of the German stock exchange in Frankfurt and has been taken up into the SDAX (small-cap) index. Information on the company and its products is available on the Internet under http://www.grenkeleasing.de. ——————————————————————————– WKN: 586590; ISIN: DE0005865901; Index: SDAX Listed: Geregelter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr in Berlin- Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, München und Stuttgart 120746 Nov 03