Grenke AG — Earnings Release 2005

Apr 28, 2005

News Details

Ad-hoc | 28 April 2005 08:01

GRENKELEASING AG: Profit grows by 45 %

Ad hoc announcement §15 WpHG three months report 2005 GRENKELEASING AG: Profit grows by 45 % Ad hoc announcement transmitted by DGAP. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. —————————————————————————— Baden-Baden, 28 April 2005: The earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) came to EUR 11.1 million in Q1 of this year against EUR 9.8 million in Q1 2004. It thus increased by 14 %. After-tax profit came to EUR 6.9 million in Q1 2005. This means an increase of 45 % against last year”s comparable of EUR 4.8 million. In this respect, GRENKELEASING benefited from a basis effect. As already reported in advance, the company’s new business (i.e. the total acquisition costs of newly purchased leased assets) rose by 8.8 % to EUR 95.3 million in Q1 2005 (Q1 2004: EUR 87.6 million). The company’s new business in Germany was particularly impacted by the early Easter holidays and merely grew by 1.6 %. Its foreign subsidiaries accounted for 30 % of the group’s total new business. Its new business in France grew by 22 % and in Switzerland by 40 %. 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 superproportionally to EUR 10.9 million in Q1 2005 against last year’s comparable of EUR 10.0 million, representing an increase of 9.3 %. EPS (according to IFRS) rose from EUR 0.35 in the previous year to EUR 0.51. The full three months report for 2005 is available on the Internet under http://www.grenkeleasing.de Investor Relations-Financial Data. The Executive Board Should you have any queries, please contact: 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 report GRENKELEASING AG Neuer Markt 2 76532 Baden-Baden Deutschland ISIN: DE0005865901 (SDAX) WKN: 586590 Listed: Geregelter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr in Berlin- Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, München und Stuttgart End of ad hoc announcement (c)DGAP 28.04.2005 Issuer’s information/explanatory remarks concerning this ad hoc announcement: “One of GRENKELEASING’s core competences is the cost-efficient administration of leasing contracts. Monitoring the costs trend in proportion to income therefore makes sense. GRENKELEASING was again very successful in this respect. The cost/income ratio for Q1 2005 fell to 40.6 % compared to 44.6 % a year ago”, said Wolfgang Grenke, Chairman of the Executive Board, commenting on the company’s quarterly financial statements. As regards the future outlook, he said “Our aim is to become the leading European small-ticket IT leasing company. This goal is aided, firstly, by market penetration achieved through founding new foreign subsidiaries and, secondly, we attach importance to synergies generated by our cooperation with successful partners. In addition, we have begun to give our existing lessees more intensive direct support. We do so by providing framework agreements and offering additional services. To meet the demand of our direct customers, we wish to expand our product range in future where our core competencies can achieve competitive advantages. In this respect we concluded a franchise agreement with GRENKE AUTOLEASING GmbH (car leasing) on 19 April 2005. The franchise partner are entitled to use the “GRENKE” brand, but is legally and economically speaking an independent entity. As expected, the somewhat weaker growth in Q1 caused by the early Easter holidays has normalised at the start of Q2. We are thus sticking to our full- year target for 2005 – a double-digit increase in new business and profits through organic growth.” The average number of employees rose from 274 in Q1 2004 to currently 311 (on a full-time basis, excl. executive board). The company now has operations in 13 European countries. GRENKELEASING is represented in 20 cities throughout Germany. In addition to its five French branch offices and two branch offices in Switzerland, the company has subsidiaries in Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland. A franchise system gives GRENKELEASING a presence in the UK and Poland. GRENKELEASING mainly offers small-ticket IT leasing contracts, i.e. for products such as PC’s, notebooks, copiers, printers, or software having relatively small transaction values. The company is the German and Swiss market leader in this segment. GRENKELEASING AG is listed in the Prime Standard segment of the German stock exchange in Frankfurt and has a listing on the SDAX (small-cap) index. Information on the company and its products is available on the Internet under http://www.grenkeleasing.de . End of message (c)DGAP 280801 Apr 05