DATAGROUP posts record results for the financial year across all segments –
EBITDA rises by 49% to EUR 15.3m (EBITDA margin 9.7%) –
EPS jump from 14 cents to 65 cents (+348%) –
Revenues increase by 3% to EUR 157m

Pliezhausen, November 17, 2015. DATAGROUP AG (WKN A0JC8S) today publishes preliminary figures for the financial year from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015. The IT service provider delivers record earnings. DATAGROUP also increased revenues and again exceeded guidance. CORBOX, the full-service offer, significantly contributes to expanding the core business with its long-term outsourcing and cloud contracts.

In the past financial year, DATAGROUP increased revenues by 3% to EUR 157m thus achieving a new all-time-high (guidance: >EUR 155m, FY 2013/2014: EUR 152.4m). At the same time, the company continued to focus on high-margin outsourcing and cloud services. As a result, the sales quality has been heavily improved, which led to a disproportionate rise in profitability. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 49% to EUR 15.3m (guidance: >EUR 15m, FY 2013/2014: EUR 10.3m after extraordinary expenses) and reached a new peak. The EBITDA margin rose to 9.7% (FY 2013/2014: 6.7% after extraordinary expenses). Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were boosted by 98% (FY 2013/2014: EUR 4.8m after extraordinary expenses) to EUR 9.6m. Net income for the period more than quadrupled to EUR 4.9m (FY 2013/2014: EUR 1.1m). This corresponds to earnings per share of 65 cents (FY 2013/2014: 14 cents after extraordinary expenses).

‘We end the financial year 2014/15 with excellent results’, comments DATAGROUP CEO Max H.-H. Schaber. ‘This is due to the consistent implementation of our growth strategy, DATAGROUP 2020, which is a total success also in terms of earnings improvement. We strongly benefit from our focus on high-margin IT services, standardised and industrialised production processes, improved cost efficiency, and from targeted acquisitions. This very good result is an important milestone for us. We will continue our road to success of strong and profitable growth in the current financial year.’

Thanks to the launch of full-service offer CORBOX in October 2014, DATAGROUP was able to accelerate growth in its core business with long-term outsourcing contracts. ‘Digitisation provides a major challenge to companies across all industries’, says Dirk Peters, COO of DATAGROUP AG. ‘Ever more companies are outsourcing their basic IT operations, so the internal IT specialists can focus on strategic tasks. CORBOX offers our customers a modular solution for carefree IT operations that are sure to succeed. We have won 18 new customers for large-volume outsourcing contracts in our first year with CORBOX – 3 more than planned.’ DATAGROUP also extended numerous orders of existing customers by several years and by additional services.

In addition to organic growth of high-margin IT services, two acquisitions contributed to the company’s success. Already on October 1, 2014, DATAGROUP acquired Excelcis Business Technology AG, the high-end mobility specialist. At the beginning of August, the company also acquired employees and customer relations of software and consulting company Vega Deutschland GmbH by way of an asset deal. Acquisitions are an integral part of the future strategy DATAGROUP 2020. By 2020, DATAGROUP plans to become market leader in Germany as outsourcing and cloud service provider for companies with 250 to 5,000 IT workplaces with the help of organic and inorganic growth.

In this context, the company also focuses on efficiency increases by centralising employees and resources in service factories. On October 1, 2015, existing units were integrated into two new subsidiaries, DATAGROUP Service Desk GmbH und DATAGROUP Data Center GmbH. This will facilitate, for instance, the organisation of illness and holiday cover, the particularly costly 24/7 operations, and the cover of peak loads. ‘The centralisation of the service production in the fields of service desk and data centre provides particularly large advantages in scale and quality’, says Max H.-H. Schaber. ‘Other CORBOX IT services will be rendered decentrally as before. Our strategic goal is an optimal combination of central and local production, which will make us even more efficient while we remain close to our customers.’

DATAGROUP will announce the final figures for FY 2014/15 in January 2016.

About DATAGROUP:

DATAGROUP is a leading German IT service company. Over 1,400 employees at 16 locations across Germany design, implement, and operate IT infrastructure and business applications such as SAP. With its product CORBOX, DATAGROUP is a full-service provider, serving over 330,000 global IT workstations for medium and large enterprises as well as for public-sector clients. In other words: ‘We manage IT’. The company is growing organically and through acquisitions. The acquisition strategy is particularly noted for its optimal integration of the new companies. DATAGROUP is actively participating in the IT service market’s consolidation process with its ‘buy and turn around’ and its ‘buy and build’ strategy

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