Ad-hoc | 6 November 2008 00:32
plenum AG / Quarter Results
Release of an Ad hoc announcement according to § 15 WpHG, transmitted by
DGAP - a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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Ad hoc - Release of plenum AG
Stabile Business Performance Despite Financial Crisis
• plenum grows by almost 11% in the first nine months
• EBIT of 0.1 million EUR in Q3
• Liquidity climbs from 3.6 to 4.5 million EUR in Q3
• Solid order backlog of 5.2 million EUR
Wiesbaden, November 6, 2008 - plenum AG (Prime Standard, ISIN DE
0006901002) generates sales revenues of 4.7 million EUR for the third
quarter ended September 30, 2008 (prior year period: 4.4 million EUR as
adjusted for the disposal of the agency, stoll & fischbach).
Consequently, revenues climbed from 12.4 million EUR in 2007 (adjusted for
the disposal of the agency, stoll & fischbach) by almost 11 % to 13.7
million EUR during the first nine months of the current year.
At the same time, the EBIT amounted to 0.42 million EUR for the first three
quarters (prior period: 0.03 million EUR including sales proceeds from the
agency, stoll & fischbach)) and the EBIT margin reached 3.1%.
At 11%, growth was below the target mark of 15%. Improvements in fixed cost
allocation, which would have been necessary to reach the desired EBIT
margin of 6% could therefore not be attained.
That this only deals with a timing shift is evident in the sound
performance of our core business: Gross profit (revenues less cost of sales
in %) rose by over 16% to about 4.7 million EUR in the first nine-month
period (prior period: 4.0 million EUR adjusted for the disposal of the
agency, stoll & fischbach) and the gross margin reached 34% of revenues
(comparative prior period: 30%).
Based on solid new orders placed in Q3 of about 4.7 million EUR, the order
backlog of 5.2 million EUR steadied at a sound level. The orders comprise
of 30% for banks, 38% for insurance, 7% for energy suppliers and 25% for
other companies. The fo-cus of consulting orders is predominantly placed
on:
• Optimizing efficiency and IT cost structure
• Stronger IT alignment towards the business strategy
• Increasing the degree of automation in core processes
• Utilization of synergies by means of cooperation across companies
As Management Consulting for the industrialization of the services sector,
especially for financial service providers, significant order risks for
plenum lie in the financial crisis. However, this is not of a structural,
but only of a temporary nature. Sudden order cancellation or delays in
order placement would temporarily impact our company. But precisely the
financial crisis results in banks backing out of speculative transactions
and simultaneously requiring more efforts to standardize and automate their
conventional credit issuance business, payment transactions and security
management and to cooperate accordingly. Arising from this immense
pressure on financial service providers for successful and sustainable
industrialization, plenum can even profit from the financial crisis on the
medium term.
Information and comments from the issuer of this report:
This report contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and
uncertainties due to current expectations, estimates, predictions and
fore-casts as well as the use of estimates by the management of plenum AG.
Such forward-looking comments comprise the predictions of budgets,
strategies and outlooks. Forward-looking statements can also be identified
by words such as 'anticipates', 'expects', 'preliminary', 'plans',
'predicts', and similar terms. Forward-looking statements are no guarantees
of future performance and the Company's actual results may differ
significantly from the results discussed in this section.
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Information and Explaination of the Issuer to this News:
Information about plenum AG:
plenum AG (Prime Standard, ISIN DE0006901001) is a leading German
Management Consulting Firm focusing on solutions for strategic task
completion as part of the industrialization of service providers,
particularly financial service providers and energy suppliers.
Regarding further information or inquiries, please contact:
plenum AG
Investor Relations
Hagenauer Str. 53
65203 Wiesbaden
Tel.: +49 (0)611-9882-0
Fax: +49 (0)611-9882-496
Email: aktie@plenum.de
Internet: www.plenum.de
06.11.2008 Financial News transmitted by DGAP
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Language: English
Issuer: plenum AG
Hagenauer Straße 53
65203 Wiesbaden
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)611 9882-361
Fax: +49 (0)611 9882-496
E-mail: aktie@plenum.de
Internet: www.plenum.de
ISIN: DE0006901002
WKN: 690100
Listed: Regulierter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard), Stuttgart;
Freiverkehr in Berlin, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf
End of News DGAP News-Service
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