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FAST Casualwear: Good financial position despite a challenging first quarter 2013

DGAP-News: FAST Casualwear AG / Key word(s): Quarter Results
FAST Casualwear: Good financial position despite a challenging first
quarter 2013

29.05.2013 / 08:33

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Results Q1 2013

FAST Casualwear: Good financial position despite a challenging first
quarter 2013

* Revenues of 20.8 million Euros on previous year's level
* EBIT decreased by 16.8 per cent to 4.6 million Euros
* Sales of own FAST casualwear products increased
* Improved equity and cash position
* Revenue growth and stable EBIT margin expected for 2013

Hamburg, May 29, 2013 - FAST Casualwear AG, a manufacturer of casual
footwear and apparel in China, looks back to a challenging first quarter
2013. While revenues remained nearly stable compared to 2012, profit
margins decreased slightly. Nevertheless, FAST expects growth for the full
year 2013 and disposes of a good cash position, allowing the company to
further invest in its production facilities as well as in the expansion of
its distribution network.

Within the first three months of the financial year 2013 FAST Casualwear
realized revenues of 20.8 million Euros, showing a slight decrease of 1.5
per cent compared to the same period in 2012 with total revenues of 21.1
million Euros. The main reason for this decrease was lower sales in the
OEM/ODM segment. Revenues in this segment are mainly derived from the sale
of casual and sport shoes manufactured for various international brand
owners mainly in Europe and the United States.

The segment of FAST's own brand casualwear products remained the major
revenue driver in the first three months of 2013, representing a share of
86.0 per cent (Q1 2012: 79.0 per cent) amounting to 17.9 million Euros of
total revenues. Especially sales from shoes strongly increased in the
reporting period, realizing 58.2 per cent (Q1 2012: 51.0 per cent) of total
revenues and generating revenues of 12.1 million Euros (Q1 2012: 10.7
million Euros). The sales in FAST's second product segment OEM/ODM products
decreased by 34.6 per cent to 2.9 million Euros year-on-year, mainly due to
the company's focus on the higher profit margin FAST brand products.


Decline of gross profit and EBIT

Gross profit went down by 8.0 per cent to 5.5 million Euros (Q1 2012: 6.0
million Euros) while the gross profit margin slightly decreased by 1.9
percentage points to 26.7 per cent (Q1 2012: 28.6 per cent). The lower
gross profit resulted from a net effect of an increase in the gross profit
within the FAST brand shoes segment and a decrease of the gross profit in
the FAST branded apparel segment as well as the OEM/ODM business.