EQS-Adhoc

Basler AG: Preliminary business figures for 2023: Basler closes restructuring year in line with forecast, dividend payment for 2023 suspended

EQS-Ad-hoc: Basler AG / Key word(s): Annual Results/Dividend Basler AG: Preliminary business figures for 2023:   Basler closes restructuring year in line with forecast, dividend payment for 2023 suspended  05-March-2024 / 15:48 CET/CEST Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Publication of inside information pursuant to Article 17 of Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 (MAR)

Preliminary business figures for 2023: Basler closes restructuring year in line with forecast, dividend payment for 2023 suspended  

•    Sales Euro 203.1 million (2022: Euro 272.2 million, -25 %) 
•    Incoming orders Euro 166.9 million (2022: Euro 248.4 million, -33 %) 
•    EBITDA Euro 1.7 million (2022: Euro 45.8 million, -96 %) 
•    EBITDA before restructuring expenses Euro 8.5 million  
•    EBT Euro -20.2 million (2022: Euro 28.3 million, >-100 %) 
•    EBT before restructuring expenses Euro –8.0 million 
•    Earnings after tax Euro -13.8 million (2022: Euro 21.4 million, >-100 %) 
•    Free cash flow Euro -9.2 million (2022: Euro -31.8 million) 

 Ahrensburg, March 5, 2024 – Basler AG, a leading supplier of image processing solutions for computer vision applications, is today publishing preliminary business figures for financial year 2023. 

The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and the chip crisis, as well as increased geopolitical tensions, posed significant challenges for the Basler Group in 2023. The exceptional boom of the previous two years, with a cumulative sales growth of more than 50 %, turned out to be premature, and customer ordering behavior to be exaggerated due to the chip shortage. Already at the beginning of the year, due to weak incoming orders, a high number of cancellations from Asia and shrinking order backlogs, as well as negative macroeconomic developments, it became apparent that it would be a difficult year. The management responded with a strict cost-cutting program in the first quarter. When it became clear that the markets in Asia and North America would not recover as expected in the second half of the year, a restructuring program was initiated in the middle of the year.