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DATAGROUP SE: DATAGROUP Reports Strong First Quarter in the New Fiscal Year

DGAP-News: DATAGROUP SE / Key word(s): Quarter Results DATAGROUP SE: DATAGROUP Reports Strong First Quarter in the New Fiscal Year 23.02.2021 / 07:30 The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. DATAGROUP Reports Strong First Quarter in the New Fiscal Year

REVENUE UP +31.1 %; EBITDA +57.1 %; EBIT +142.2 %; EPS +141.2 % COMPARED TO THE PRIOR-YEAR PERIOD
 

Pliezhausen, February 23, 2021. DATAGROUP SE (WKN A0JC8S) today publishes the results of the first quarter of FY 2020/2021. Strong order intake and additional business with existing customers lead to significant improvement in earnings figures.

In the first quarter of the fiscal year (01.10.-31.12.2020) revenue was up 31.1 % to EUR 108.6m (previous year EUR 82.8m). Fortunately, organic growth was roughly 10 %, while the remaining share was due to the first-time consolidation of Portavis. DATAGROUP's business model as engine room of digitization thus has proven to be extremely robust in times of a pandemic as well. The proportion of service revenue declined slightly from 82.8 % to 79.7 %.

Operating earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved strongly by 57.1 % to EUR 14.8m (PY EUR 9.5m). At 13.7 %, the EBITDA margin was well above the 11.4 % reached in the prior period. It should be noted that the first quarter of FY 2019/2020 was adversely affected by special items. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) improved by 142.2 % to EUR 6.6m (PY EUR 2.7m), corresponding to an EBIT margin of 6.0 % (PY 3.3 %). Earnings per share were 41 cents compared to 17 cents in the previous year, corresponding to an increase of 141.2 %.

"We are looking to the further course of this fiscal year with great confidence", Max H.-H. Schaber sums up. "The difficulties at DATAGROUP Financial IT Services GmbH, which had led to massive losses and risk provisions of EUR 12m in aggregate in the last fiscal year, are behind us for the most part. With a view to the customer situations in question, we managed to establish a stable business environment, greatly improve the cost structure - for instance by reducing expensive freelancer capacities - and to increase billable services. We expect to achieve operating profitability much earlier than expected so far", Schaber continues.