- Gross profits of 4.50 million euros (previous year: 4.76 million euros); gross profit margin at 12.8 percent (previous year: 12.9 percent)
- Full-year gross profits expected to increase slightly due to positive customer trend
- Earnings before taxes (EBT) of -1.18 million euros (previous year: -0.29 million euros) influenced by extraordinary effects; adjusted EBT at -0.46 million euros
- Comprehensive change initiative implemented in H1 2016
Gross profits in the Group’s Academics Business Unit declined by a moderate 5.4 percent to 1.62 million euros in H1 2016. In the Digital Goods Business Unit, gross profits dropped by 5.4 percent to 2.51 million euros due to a larger number of low-margin transactions and a slower development of high-margin business. The new Physical Goods Business Unit generated gross profits of 0.37 million euros in the reporting period (previous year: 0.40 million euros). The first six months of the year primarily saw the new Business Unit sharpen its sales focus and establish new customer contacts in Asia, which confirm that there is interest in asknet’s solutions.
The change initiative, which was launched at the beginning of the year with the aim of analyzing and increasing the economic and strategic contribution made by internal workflows and processes, will clearly help asknet pave the way for innovations and new growth. The change initiative has essentially been completed in the meantime and the resulting measures have been implemented. The savings achieved as a result will be reflected in earnings as of the second half of the year. Moreover, internal resources can now be directed more effectively towards innovation topics, core customer support and sales tasks. asknet is currently developing an innovation initiative, which is scheduled to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2016. After the internal process optimizations, the new initiative will focus on opening up growth prospects.
Says Tobias Kaulfuss, CEO of asknet AG: “The first six months of 2016 have confirmed the need for the current change process and intensified our efforts. We are firmly convinced that the events of the first half-year have made us stronger and that we will continue our growth strategy.”
Besides the major internal reform efforts, the company is currently busy dealing with an encouragingly high volume of customer business and leads in all Business Units. A special mention is deserved by several new customer agreements in Asia as well as by the asknet Verify stand-alone solution, which is seeing growing demand.
On balance, the Executive Board of asknet AG continues to expect a slight increase in gross profits in view of the efficiency gains achieved and the good project and customer pipeline. Due to shifts in revenues, however, the gross profit margin is expected to decline somewhat compared to the previous year. In view of the potential retrospective tax payment in Norway, asknet AG’s Executive Board downgraded its earnings forecast already on June 24. Because of the extraordinary effects outlined above, the Executive Board confirms the expected range of negative consolidated earnings after taxes (EAT) of between -1.7 million euros and a maximum of -2.5 million euros. Adjusted EBT for the full year 2016 is expected to fall slightly below the prior year level.
Given that the provision of 1.61 million euros led to a loss of more than half of asknet AG’s share capital, the company has called an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders for tomorrow, August 23, 2016, in accordance with legal requirements. To be able to seize growth opportunities arising from the new innovation initiative and to make promising investments, the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board have asked the company’s shareholders to lay the basis for raising new contingent capital.
January 1 – June 30, 2016
Sales revenues: 35.16 million euros
Gross profits: 4.50 million euros
Gross profit margin (gross profits in percent of sales revenues): 12.8%
EBT: -1.18 million euros
Adjusted EBT: -0.46 million euros
Result for the period: -2.26 million euros
January 1 – June 30, 2015
Sales revenues: 36.98 million euros
Gross profits: 4.76 million euros
Gross profit margin (gross profits in percent of sales revenues): 12.9%
EBT: -0.29 million euros
Adjusted EBT: n.a.
Result for the period: -0.29 million euros
The full report on the first six months of 2016 is available on the company’s website at www.asknet.com as of today.