Singulus Technologies AG

Earnings Release • Mar 27, 2009

News Details

Corporate | 27 March 2009 08:00

SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG Meets Forecast for 2008

SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG / Final Results

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Press release

SINGULUS Meets Forecast for 2008

• Sales forecast met at EUR 212.1 million

• Order intake and order backlog 2008 above prior-year levels

• EBIT negative after restructuring

Kahl am Main, March 27, 2009 - The SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES Group (SINGULUS)
met its own forecast for the business year 2008 and achieved sales in the
amount of EUR 212.1 million (previous year: EUR 229.5 million). Adjusted
for
restructuring expenses and impairment charges positive earnings before
interest and taxes (EBIT) in the amount of EUR 2.0 million resulted
(previous
year: EUR 4.2 million). Including these extraordinary effects the EBIT for
the period under review came to EUR -46.2 million (previous year: EUR 1.1
million).

The gross margin improved significantly in the business year 2008. The rise
to 31.6 % (previous year: 29.3 %) was mainly caused by a high share of
strong-margin business with our Blu-ray replication machines as well as
increasing business activities in the Solar segment in comparison to
overall sales.

The order backlog of EUR 70.2 million as December 31 exceeded the
prior-year
total (EUR 55.8 million) by 25.8 %. At EUR 226.4 million the order intake
for
the full year 2008 was 11.1 % higher than the EUR 203.8 million achieved in
2007. In contrast, in the 4th quarter 2008 the order intake of EUR 28.9
million was weak as expected. Stefan A. Baustert, Chief Executive Officer
of the SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG, comments: 'Since the order intake for
optical disc equipment is cyclical and concentrated in the months April to
July, we also expected this trend for the new Blu-ray Disc production
machines in the 4th quarter. In the Solar segment a significant improvement
of the order intake compared with the previous year was achieved. Only the
4th quarter showed some slow-down here, which we attribute to the financial
and economic crisis.'

Outlook

During the Supervisory Board meeting on September 17, 2008 SINGULUS
TECHNOLOGIES decided to concentrate on the core businesses Optical Disc and
Solar in the future.

These markets addressed by SINGULUS show good growth potential for the
coming years. For many years SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES has held a globally
leading market position in the sales of production equipment for CD and
DVD. SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES was also able to position itself as market
leader in the new optical disc format 'Blu-ray' in the year 2008.

Our second core activity, the Solar segment, exhibited a satisfactory
performance in the business year 2008. Both sales and order intake of our
subsidiary STANGL Semiconductor Equipment AG increased to a significantly
higher level than the previous year's.

As in many other sectors of machine and plant engineering, the global
economic crisis also had a negative impact on the order volumes in the
solar industry. Insofar, in particular in the first months of the business
year 2009 the business activities in the solar sector are expected to
remain subdued. At the same time the governments in the key industrial
countries passed huge economic stimulus programs recently to revitalize
economic activities.

It is expected that parts of these public investments will flow into the
area of the 'Renewable Energies' and therefore also into the solar
industry. Therefore, we are convinced that the market for production
equipment for solar cells and modules will already pick up during the 2nd
half of 2009. In the medium- to long-term we see good market and growth
prospects for photovoltaic production equipment.

With the clear focus of the company on the core activities Optical Disc and
Solar we regard the company well positioned for the future. Both the market
for production machines for solar cells and the market for Blu-ray
production lines are young market, which will only start to grow sharply in
the next couple of years.

Due to the currently difficult global economic conditions and a weak start
of the fiscal year 2009 we cannot rule out a negative impact on our core
activities Optical Disc and Solar for the business year 2009. Accordingly,
our budgets for 2009 are cautious and we implemented company-wide cost
reduction programs. This also includes personnel measures.

SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES - consolidated key figures (IFRS)

                                              2006     2007     2008

Sales (gross) in mn. EUR 283.1 229.5 212.1
Order intake in mn. EUR 319.0 203.8 226.4
Order backlog as of Dec. 31 in mn. EUR 81.5 55.8 70.2
EBIT in mn. EUR 4.0 1.1 -46.2
EBT in mn. EUR 4.3 1.6 -54.1
Net profit (loss) in mn. EUR 11.1 3.0 -49.3
Earnings per share EUR 0.35 0.05 -1.32
Employees as of Dec. 31 796 764 722

For further information please contact:

SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG, Hanauer Landstrasse 103,

D-63796 Kahl/Main, ISIN: DE0007238909, WKN: 723890

Robert Adolph, Head of Investor Relations, Tel.: + 49 (0) 6188 440 612

Bernhard Krause, Corporate Communications, Tel.: + 49 (0) 1709202924
27.03.2009 Financial News transmitted by DGAP

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Language: English
Issuer: SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG
Hanauer Landstrasse 103
63796 Kahl am Main
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)6188 440-105
Fax: +49 (0)6188 440-110
E-mail: bernhard.krause@go-metacom.de
Internet: www.singulus.de
ISIN: DE0007238909
WKN: 723890
Listed: Regulierter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr
in Berlin, Stuttgart, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf

End of News DGAP News-Service

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