Grenke AG — Earnings Release 2003

Jan 5, 2004

News Details

Ad-hoc | 5 January 2004 08:14

GRENKELEASING: growth accelerates

Ad-hoc-announcement transmitted by DGAP. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. ——————————————————————————– GRENKELEASING: growth accelerates Baden-Baden, January 5, 2004: GRENKELEASING closed the financial year 2003 with earnings in new business – i.e. the total acquisition costs of newly purchased leased assets – of EUR 309m (previous year EUR 278m). This corresponds to year- on-year growth in new business of 11 per cent for the full year 2003. The volume of new business came to EUR 90m in Q4 2003, representing a rise of 20 per cent over Q3 (EUR 75m) (previous year: 14 per cent). 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 profitability indicator, grew correspondingly to EUR 33.9m in 2003, as compared to a figure of EUR 28.5m in the previous year. This represents a 19 per cent increase. Its new business in Germany rose in 2003 by 16 per cent. GRENKELEASING’s foreign subsidiaries showed the effect of what was – compared to the previous year – a more restrictive acceptance policy. They made a 22 per cent contribution to the group’s new business. The company will publish its annual accounts for 2003 on March 2, 2004. The Executive Board Should you have any queries, please contact: GRENKELEASING AG, Neuer Markt 2, 76532 Baden-Baden Renate Hauss Tel: 0049-(0)-7221/5007-204 Fax: 0049-(0)-7221/5007-112 E-mail: investor@grenkeleasing.de Internet: http://www.grenkeleasing.de end of ad-hoc-announcement (c)DGAP 05.01.2004 Issuer’s information/explanatory remarks concerning this ad-hoc-announcement: “Since it is now clear that in future no trade tax will be triggered by leasing- based investments, we take a very optimistic view of the future trend in new business. This outlook is supported by the entirely positive figures of Q4. Our targets for 2004 are thus clear: we again seek double-digit growth in our new business. We expect profit growth to increase further,” explains Mr. Wolfgang Grenke, Chairman of the Executive Board of GRENKELEASING AG. He forecasts that the current financing bottleneck faced by small and medium-sized companies will make leasing more attractive as an alternative since it allows a further diversification of corporate finance. He also expects support from increasing general economic activity. The group recorded 92,422 leasing enquiries in FY 2003, leading to the generation of 45,126 new leasing contracts. The average value per concluded contract came to EUR 6,850 and is thus slightly lower than in the previous year (2002 = EUR 7,000). GRENKELEASING is represented in 20 cities throughout Germany. In London and Poznan the twelth and thirteenth foreign locations were opened, giving the company an operational basis in nine 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 just around the corner. GRENKELEASING is also due to start up the operative side of its business in Ireland shortly, having previous already had two financing subsidiaries there. 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 050814 Jän 04