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freenet AG announces provisional figures for 2014: Increase of EBITDA and free cash flow leads to a higher dividend

DGAP-News: freenet AG / Key word(s): Preliminary Results/Forecast
freenet AG announces provisional figures for 2014: Increase of EBITDA
and free cash flow leads to a higher dividend

24.02.2015 / 18:11

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freenet AG announces provisional figures for 2014:
Increase of EBITDA and free cash flow leads to a higher dividend

- Group EBITDA of 365.6 million euros up slightly compared with the
previous year (357.4 million euros) and targeting the guidance

- Gross profit increases by 6.4% to 778.1 million euros

- The freenet Group's free cash flow* is also positive at 266.6 million
euros (previous year: 256.2 million euros)

- The Group result increases by 3.9% to 248.2 million euros compared with
the previous year

- Customer ownership increases to 8.92 million (previous year: 8.76
million)

- Postpaid ARPU lower at 21.4 euros (previous year: 22.3 euros); but only
0.50 euros below the previous year in Q4

- Group revenue falls by 4.8 per cent to 3.0 billion euros (previous
year: 3.2 billion euros), mainly as a result of the decision to
dispense with low-margin business; modest growth in Q4 compared with
the previous year

- Outlook for the financial years 2015 and 2016

- Dividend proposal of 1.50 euros per share

Büdelsdorf, 24 February 2015 - Provisional figures indicate that freenet AG
[ISIN DE000A0Z2ZZ5] generated Group EBITDA (earnings before interest,
taxes, depreciation and amortisation) of 365.6 million euros (previous
year: 357.4 million euros) and free cash flow* of 266.6 million euros
(previous year: 256.2 million euros). This means that freenet AG has
slightly exceeded the forecast 365.0 million euros for Group EBITDA and
265.0 million euros for free cash flow* for the year 2014 as a whole that
it announced in February last year.

Based on the provisional figures, freenet AG's Group revenue decreased
slightly to 3.041 billion euros in the financial year ended (previous year:
3.193 billion euros). Revenue-reducing effects arose first and foremost
from lower revenues in low-margin hardware business. An additional factor
in this downward trend was the lower average revenue per customer (ARPU) in
the postpaid customer segment. With a revenue contribution of 2.989 billion