Ad hoc release: ALSO increases profit and turnover

"We are satisfied with these developments. The business is evolving as we had anticipated. We remain confident that our earnings in 2016 will surpass our earnings from the previous year," said Gustavo Möller-Hergt, CEO of ALSO Holding AG (SIX: ALSN). On account of significant increases for certain operational figures, the company has decided to release its earnings statement for the first nine months of the 2016 financial year today already, instead of on October 27, 2016 as originally planned.

Central Europe market segment

While sales in the Central Europe segment fell slightly to EUR 3,474.6 million from EUR 3,608.8 million (-3.7 percent), earnings before taxes increased from EUR 31.7 million to EUR 54.3 million (+ 71.3 percent). The EBT margin increased from 0.9 to 1.6 percent. This improvement can be attributed to an enhanced ratio of business operations in the core market of Germany. “The management team has made a deliberate decision to prioritize high margins over some high-volume orders,” said Möller-Hergt.

Northern / Eastern Europe market segment

Sales in the Northern / Eastern Europe market segment rose to EUR 2,339.7 million from EUR 2,022.5 million (+ 15.7 percent) in the previous year, with earnings before taxes falling to EUR 10.4 million from EUR 22.5 million in the same period (-53.8 percent). The EBT margin amounted to 0.4 percent, compared to 1.1 percent in the same period in 2015. As in the previous quarter, ongoing initial investments in Poland, Finland, and the Benelux countries continue to have a short-term negative impact on profitability. “From an operational point of view, our activities in these markets are satisfactory,” said Möller-Hergt.

The previous year’s figures for the segments have been adjusted to reflect the reallocation of ALSO International B.V. and the ALSO Nederland B.V. (Benelux) from the Central Europe to the Northern / Eastern Europe segment. The figures have been calculated on a comparable basis.

Outlook

ALSO is expecting to increase the company’s profit in the full year 2016 significantly compared to the previous year.