Pliezhausen, 10 March 2022. DATAGROUP SE (WKN A0JC8S) today held its Annual General Meeting, which again took place virtually. The company looks back on a very successful past year. The management provided an optimistic outlook for the current fiscal year: Revenue is expected to grow to EUR 480 – 500m, EBITDA to EUR 72 – 75m and EBIT to EUR 39 – 42m.

At this year’s ordinary Annual General Meeting of DATAGROUP SE, the Management Board took stock of a very successful fiscal year 2020/2021. 76 shareholders used the possibility of a virtual participation through an electronic portal. All items on the agenda were approved.

In particular, the shareholders elected Max H.-H. Schaber to the Supervisory Board. Mr. Schaber founded the company, initiated the IPO in 2006 and transformed the company into the leading IT service provider for German Mittelstand companies through almost 30 acquisitions. With the conclusion of the AGM, Andreas Baresel will take over as Chief Executive Officer from Mr. Schaber and will lead the company into the future in tandem with CFO Oliver Thome. Dr. Sabine Laukemann will join the Management Board as Chief Human Resources Officer from 1 April 2022.

“The performance of DATAGROUP has been outstanding over the last few years. The changeover from a time-and-material approach to a Service-as-a-Product model a couple of years ago has laid the foundation for the company’s successful transformation from a manufacture-oriented IT service provider to a strongly automated production machine for IT services. Over the years, profitability has gradually increased in line with an increase in standardized services. With an EBITDA margin of over 15 % we are at the top level today, some 80 % of gross margin is based on recurring revenues secured by long-term contracts”, Schaber sums up. DATAGROUP has a broad customer portfolio, which mainly includes public authorities and German Mittelstand customers. Thanks to the broad positioning and the longstanding customer relationships the company’s business remains largely unaffected by the war in Ukraine.

Heinz Hilgert, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, thanked Mr. Schaber, the Management Board and the employees of DATAGROUP for their relentless dedication for the company, the clients, and users in the difficult times of the pandemic. Special thanks also went to Dr. Carola Wittig, who retired from the Supervisory Board at the end of the Annual General Meeting.

Ambitious Guidance for the Current Fiscal Year

“We can now look to the further course of our current fiscal year with a great deal of confidence”, says Andreas Baresel. “We have started with an outstanding first quarter and the Management Board assumes that the growth track of the last years will be continued. For the current fiscal year, we expect revenues of EUR 480 – 500m, an EBITDA of EUR 72 – 75m and an EBIT of EUR 39 – 42m. It is our goal to generate revenues to the tune of some EUR 750m and an EBIT margin of 9 % by 2025/26. Productizing our services to an even higher degree by making use of Artificial Intelligence and robot-based automation processes will help us to more than compensate for wage and price increases”, Baresel continues. “We have completed the basic investments in our data centers and will largely be able to deliver on revenue expectations in our existing structure. As such, depreciation and amortization as well as intangible assets (CAPEX) will continue to decline in relation to revenues”, CFO Oliver Thome adds.

Further information on the Annual General Meeting, the voting results and the speech of the Management Board is available on the website at www.datagroup.de/en/annual-general-meeting.