Pliezhausen, March 4, 2021. DATAGROUP SE (WKN A0JC8S) held its Annual General Meeting today. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, shareholders were cordially invited to participate virtually. The management provided positive guidance for the current fiscal year: Revenue is expected to grow to EUR 410-420m, EBITDA to EUR 56-58m.
At this year’s ordinary Annual General Meeting of DATAGROUP SE, CEO Max H.-H. Schaber took stock of the performance in fiscal year 2019/2020. 152 shareholders used the possibility of a virtual participation through an electronic portal. All items on the agenda were approved by a clear majority.
“The fiscal year 2019/2020 was a mixed one for us. On the one hand, group revenue has grown impressively. On the other hand, the bottom line was affected by delayed start-ups in the banking sector and significantly higher expenses for the boarding of new bank customers, particularly in the second half”, Max Schaber explains. “The perceptible improvement of financial ratios, as already seen in the fourth quarter, has continued at the beginning of the new fiscal year and we started the new fiscal year with a very strong first quarter”, Schaber summarizes. Last week, DATAGROUP had already reported outstanding first quarter results: An increase in revenue of 31.1 % to EUR 108.6m (previous year EUR 82.8m) and significantly improved earnings.
In fiscal year 2019/2020 revenue increased by 16.8 % to EUR 358.2m (PY EUR 306.8m), while operating earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and before risk provisions increased by 14.8 % to EUR 53.8m (PY EUR 46.9m). Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT)* were down 11.2 % to EUR 21.0m (PY EUR 23.6m). The EBITDA margin* stood at 15.0 % (PY 15.3 %). The EBIT margin* was 5.9 % (PY 7.7 %). EBT* deteriorated by 69.5 % to EUR 6.6m (PY EUR 21.7m). Earnings per share (EPS) were EUR 0.03 compared to EUR 1.74 in the previous year. When adjusted for risk provisions, EPS were EUR 1.47. Organic growth of the fully integrated entities was approx. 2 %.
“We can now look to the further course of our current fiscal year with a great deal of confidence”, says Chief Sales Officer Dirk Peters. “We have received interesting new orders such as delivering and operating the IT infrastructure of vaccination centers in Baden-Württemberg. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen growing demand for services in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as automation and mobilization of business processes, all of which are services provided by our subsidiary Almato”, Peters continues.
For the current fiscal year (01.10.2019 – 30.09.2021) the Management Board projects an increase in revenue to EUR 410-420m and in EBITDA to EUR 56-58m.
The conditions for a continuation of the successful acquisition strategy are in place: “There are interesting targets in the market, and we are currently reviewing several possible acquisitions”, says Peter Schneck, Chief Officer M&A, Legal Affairs, and Investor Relations.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the protection of our customers and employees has been at the heart of our work. Thanks to mobile working, the DATAGROUP teams were able to fully meet the customer needs in terms of service delivery at any time.
DATAGROUP was very successful in converting sales activities to virtual formats. For instance, numerous webinars are offered to our customers, with topics spanning from Internet of Things and Microsoft 365 to a migration to S/4HANA.
As in the previous years, numerous placements in different rankings are proof of the quality and efficiency of DATAGROUP. “Our company has again been voted as one of the best IT service providers in 2021 by business magazine brand eins”, says Andreas Baresel, Chief Production Officer. “During the pandemic, we have supported our customers in a situation that was difficult for them. Today, we are increasingly perceived as a system-relevant partner, who can respond flexibly to new challenges with very short response times. True to our motto “IT’s that simple”, we made flexible adjustments to our services and also to our costs, if needed, which has been rewarded by our customers with good ratings”, Baresel continues.
In addition to the ranking as IT service provider in 2021, we also achieved excellent rankings in the IT Outsourcing Study by Whitelane and Navisco. DATAGROUP ranks third in customer satisfaction here and takes first place in cloudability, end user services and innovation. In the Lünendonk study on the market for IT consulting and IT services in Germany, DATAGROUP is among the Top 10 IT service providers in Germany. DATAGROUP also achieves very good results in the key area of employer satisfaction and is among the best employers of the IT and telecommunications industry according to Stern and Statista.
Further information on the Annual General Meeting, the voting results and the speech of the Management Board is available on the website at www.datagroup.de/hauptversammlung.
*before risk provision
Claudia Erning
Investor Relations
T +49 7127 970-015
F +49 7127 970-033
claudia.erning@datagroup.de
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