Mensch und Maschine Software SE — Earnings Release 2003

Mar 10, 2004

News Details

Corporate | 10 March 2004 08:06

Mensch und Maschine present preliminary figures for 2003

Corporate-news announcement sent by DGAP. The sender is solely responsible for the contents of this announcement. ——————————————————————————– Mensch und Maschine present preliminary figures for 2003 – Net loss more than halved – Order intake in Q4 clearly stronger than revenue – Strategic focus developing well Wessling, March 10, 2004 – In fiscal year 2003, Mensch und Maschine Software AG (M+M) more than halved the net loss from previous year’s EUR 14.3 million to approx. EUR 5.9 million, though missing the initial target to achieve break-even in one step. The following special effects are included in the result: – Disproportionate Sales and Marketing Expenses during fourth quarter amounting to approx. EUR 2 million, for the larger part impacting sales and income after the end of 2003. – Non-recurring charges amounting to approx. EUR 2.6 million, mainly final restructuring costs and provisions used for reducing headcount from 441 at Dec 31, 2002 to the final number of 372 employees at March 31, 2004. – Linear goodwill amortization amounting to EUR 1.4 million, still applicable in IAS as opposed to US-GAAP. Additionally, management decided not to apply the percentage of completion method to projects totalling approx. two million Euro, which were won during 2003 e.g. in the automotive industry for the segment M+M Technology, moving the impact of these projects on sales and income from 2003 to future quarters. The development of segment spread within the three pillar strategy was very pleasing: 50% of gross margin was achieved with M+M Technologies (PY 47%) and 10% with the new segment PTC, leaving just 40% for the Value-Added Distribution of Autodesk software. This compares to an Autodesk share of approx. 90% in 1999. Here the dependance could be reduced significantly as scheduled, though M+M in 2003 again carried a good quarter of the Autodesk business throughout Europe. The consolidated group revenue 2003 amounting to EUR 131 mln was 8.5% lower than previous year’s EUR 143.1 mln. Order intake was significantly higher than booked revenues, which together with the impact of product retirements (“Obits”) in January will lead to a two digit sales and earnings increase in Q1/2004. “Altogether, we were able to develop the strategic change of our business model a bit further than estimated, but the initial targeted direct leap to break even turned out to be too ambitious”, M+M’s CEO Adi Drotleff summarizes. “As a consequence we do not use any accounting leeway in closing 2003, but follow a strictly conservative line, in order to be able to start off into 2004 without any load. With this background, our outlook to the New Year is optimistic, especially because the first quarter shows further positive development of the strategically important segments M+M Technology and PTC, while the Autodesk segment seems to stabilize on the level achieved in 2003. Our first call target for 2004 are sales above EUR 140 mln with EBIT in the order of magnitude of EUR 5 mln, giving a return from revenue above 3 percent, which we would like to develop in the mid term towards the upper one-digit percentage range. This should be possible for our business model being balanced between proprietary and trading software.” The detailled financial statements for 2003, which can differ from the above mentioned figures, will be published on March 29, 2004, as scheduled. end of message, (c)DGAP 10.03.2004 ——————————————————————————– WKN: 658 080; ISIN: DE0006580806; Index: Listed: Geregelter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr in Berlin- Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, München und Stuttgart 100800 Mär 04