Berlin, 2 November 2004 – New orders at the PSI Group developed positively in the third quarter of 2004 and, with 31 million euros, were 19% above the previous year’s value of 26 million euros. With 92 million euros, new orders in the first nine months of the current year were also above the value of 90 million for last year. Sales decreased by 14% to 84.5 million euros compare to the previous year (2003: 98.8 million euros). Thus, the book-to-bill ratio improved to 1.09 (2003: 0.91). The operating result according to IFRS after nine months was at –9.1 million euros (2003: –0.8 million euros), the group result was –10.7 million euros (2003: –1.4 million euros). The operating result improved significantly compared to the first two quarters of the current year.
The Network Management segment (energy, telecommunication, transport), despite the positive development in the Electrical Energy business, in the first nine months had 15.7% lower external sales of 45.0 million euros (2003: 53.4 million euros) according to IFRS. As a result of the weak market in the gas and telecommunication sectors starting in the second quarter and the decision not to capitalize research and development costs (2003: 1.2 million euros), the segment’s operating result decreased to –2.3 million euros (2003: +3.2 million euros).
In the Production Management segment (industry, logistics), external sales decreased by 11% to 30.5 million euros (34.3 million euros). The operating result improved, amongst other reasons due to the breakeven in PSIPENTA, by 4% to –2.7 million euros (2003:
–2.8 million euros). The entire segment production management also obtained a balanced operating result in the third quarter.
In Information Management (government, service sector) external sales decreased by 17.3% to 9.1 million euros (2003: 11.0 million euros), while the EBIT dropped by 2.8 million euros to –3.7 million euros (2003: –0.9 million euros). Without the effect of the lost litigation with the State of Berlin in the second quarter this would correspond to an improvement of 0.8 million euros to –0.1 million euros.
The number of employees on 30 September was 1,131 (30 September 2003: 1,226). With that the new orders per person increased compared to the previous year by 10 % to 81,300 Euro (2003: 73,400 euros). The volume of orders on 30 September 2004 was, with 71 million euros about 5 million euros above the value at the end of 2003. Liquidity in the third quarter increased by 2 million euros to 13.6 million, or 20 % below the value of the previous year (2003: 17.0 million euros).
In the third quarter PSI achieved initial successes in sales with the newly launched PSIpenta version. New orders also developed very positively in the business units metals, logistics and electrical energy. The restructuring measures in the business units telecommunication and gas were concluded in the third quarter and will show positive effects starting in the fourth quarter. A total of 1.9 million euros in restructuring and reorganization costs are contained in the30 September result.
As a result of the positive development of the new orders, which continued in October, and the positive impact of the structural improvement program, the management board still expects a positive result for the fourth quarter.
PSI AG develops and integrates 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 employs 1,150 persons in the group.