Berlin, 12 Mai 2003 – The PSI Group has concluded the first quarter of 2003 as forecasted. The sales in the first three months of financial year 2003 were, at Euro 34 million, slightly below last years quarter (2002:Euro 35.9 million). The EBIT of Euro –0.97 million (2002: Euro 0.51 million) was within the forecasted framework. The group result for 31 March 2003 was Euro –1.03 million (2002: Euro –0.68 million). Liquidity was stable at Euro 21 million. The number of employees in the PSI Group was reduced according to planning to 1,245 (31 March 2002: 1,348).
In the Network Management segment (energy, telecommunication, transport) sales were increased in the first three months by 12 % to Euro 18.6 million (2002: Euro 16.6 million). The EBIT in Network Management decreased to Euro 0.8 million (2002: Euro 1.2 million) as a result of higher expenses in research and development in the areas of telecommunication and transportation systems. In the Production Management segment (industry, logistics) sales decreased by 16% to Euro 10.6 million (2002: Euro 12.7 million) and the EBIT by Euro 0.7 million to Euro –1.7 million (2002: Euro –1 million). In Information Management (government, services) sales decreased by 18% to Euro 4.7 million (2002: Euro 6.6 million) and the EBIT by Euro 0.43 million to Euro –0.1 million (2002: Euro 0.33 million).
New orders in the first three months were Euro 37.5 million (2002: Euro 32 million); the number of new orders has increased by 4 auf Euro 89 million since 31 December 2002.
The group's equity capital ration on 31 March 2003 continued to be over 37%. The long-term and short-term loans have been reduced by Euro 3.6 million compared to the same quarter last year and by Euro 0.4 million since 31 December 2002, to a total of Euro 3.6 million.
In March at the CeBIT PSI made its first presentation of the newly developed manufacturing control system fort he monitoring and controlling of complex manufacturing processes in large companies, a concrete result of the technology transfer from the Network area into Production Management. The restructuring measures introduced in the subsidiaries PSIPENTA and PSI logistics in the fourth quarter of 2002 have resulted in both companies generating a continuously improved result in the course of the first quarter and to an improved utilization of capacity Both companies will reach the breakeven point in the second quarter.
The previously announced investments in the company-wide IT-technical optimization and automation of operational processes have been started in the first quarter. The management board expects a positive EBIT and sales at the same level as last year for the year, despite the poor state of the economy.
PSI AG develops individual solutions, on the basis of its own software, for the management of large networks (electricity, gas, oil, telecommunications, transport), cross-company production management (steel, chemicals, machinery, automotive, logistics) and information management for government and service providers. PSI was founded in 1969 and currently employs 1,250 persons in the group.