EQS-Adhoc

Basler AG: Preliminary business figures for 2023: Basler closes restructuring year in line with forecast, dividend payment for 2023 suspended - Seite 2

After a decade and a half of uninterrupted profitable growth, incoming orders of the Basler Group decreased by 33 % to Euro 166.9 million (previous year: Euro 248.4 million) compared to the previous year, sales fell by 25 % to Euro 203.1 million (previous year: Euro 272.2 million) resulting in a pre-tax loss of Euro -20.2 million (previous year: Euro 28.3 million). One-time restructuring charges amounted to Euro 12.2 million and accounted for a significant portion of the pre-tax loss.

With these results, Basler closes the financial year in line with the forecast revised in the middle of the year and specified in November, which envisaged sales of between Euro 200 million and Euro 205 million with a pre-tax loss of between Euro 18 million and Euro 20 million for the 2023 financial year.

Free cash flow, the sum of cash flow from operating activities and cash flow from investments, amounted to Euro -9.2 million (previous year: Euro -31.8 million). This was burdened in particular by the high costs of the organization with declining sales and the one-time special payments from the restructuring as well as the high level of investment due to the installation of the new building and the S/4 Hana project at the beginning of the year.

The measures of the restructuring program launched in mid-2023 were successfully implemented as planned by the end of 2023 and will, from today's perspective, reduce the Group's profit threshold to below Euro 200 million in sales revenues in 2024.

The ongoing weak level of incoming orders and continued high customer inventory levels in the first weeks of the fiscal year 2024 make the management cautious about the first quarter, despite increasingly positive feedback from customers. As a result, the management will continue its strict cost management for the time being.

Against the backdrop of the large loss and the drastic measures in the fiscal year 2023, as well as to protect liquidity and further restore the company's resilience in an uncertain overall economic market situation, the management board of Basler AG decided at its meeting today to propose to the annual general meeting to suspend the payment of a dividend for the fiscal year 2023 and to carry forward the entire balance sheet profit to new account. The company's fundamental dividend policy remains unchanged.