DGAP-News

Brockhaus Capital Management AG: Despite corona stable margin above 20% with significant increase in order intake - Seite 2

As of the reporting date, cash amounted to approximately € 122 million. On this solid basis, BCM Group believes it is well equipped to respond flexibly to attractive acquisition opportunities.

Revenue in Environmental Technologies segment grows by +17%; continued strong demand with a massive increase in order intake compared with 9M 2019

In the Environmental Technologies segment - consisting of Palas - revenue in the first nine months increased by +17.3% despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the first quarter was comparably weak due to general revenue fluctuations between the quarters and the initial effects of the lockdowns, customer demand grew significantly in the second and third quarters. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought aerosols (particles in air) into the center of public attention and Palas has successfully positioned itself as a technology leader with its aerosol measurement technology. Especially test rigs for the effectiveness control of respiratory masks continued to sell particularly well. Other products related to aerosole measurement, for instance indoor or exhalation measurement, have followed or will follow. Order intake in the reporting period was massively above the same period of the previous year 9M 2019.

In addition, on August 27, 2020 Palas filed a patent with the European Patent Office for a measurement device for the immediate detection of particle number and size in exhaled air. The universally applicable measurement device developed by Palas can immediately identify particles in exhaled air with high-precision size resolution and could thus help to detect infectivity in human beings. This could in particular contribute to the containment of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The patent application has not yet been disclosed. A patent application is generally published 18 months from the filing date and the patentee is only entitled to rights from the patent application after this period.

Significant increase in order intake in the Security Technologies segment, despite COVID-19 related project postponements

The Security Technologies segment recorded a decline in revenue of -25.1% in 9M 2020. After revenue in the first quarter was substantially higher than in the same period of the previous year, the development deteriorated significantly in the second quarter, a trend that continued in the third quarter in terms of revenue. Key projects were delayed due to global lockdown measures as well as travel bans and social distancing restrictions. This effect was intensified in the third quarter of 2020 by the comparison to the very successful Q3 2019, which had marked by far the strongest quarter in terms of revenue in the previous fiscal year and in the company's entire history. In terms of order intake, however, the third quarter of 2020 showed a considerable recovery with a significant increase compared to Q2 2020.