Berlin, 4 May 2004 – After a slow start in financial year 2004, PSI has attained the highest volume of new orders in the first quarter in three years. Sales in the first three months of financial year 2004 decreased compared to the first three months of the previous year by 12% to 30 million euros. ( (2003: 34.0 million euros). The EBIT was EUR –1.988 k (2003: EUR –973 k), whereby 0.7 million euros are attributable to a change in the provisions practices and 0.6 million euros to non-recurring personnel expenses. The group result as of 31 March 2004 was –1.91 million euros (2003: –1.03 million euros). The number of employees on 31 March was 1,149 (31 March 2003: 1, 245).
In the Network Management Segment (energy, telecommunications, traffic) sales decreased in the first three months by 12% to 16.5million euros (2003: 18.6 million euros). The Network Management EBIT decreased to –0.4 million euros (2003: 0.8 million euros) as a result of postponed licensing business in the field of telecommunications and delays in the awarding of contracts in the energy field. In the Production Management segment (industry, logistics) sales decreased by 9% to 9.7 million euros (2003: 10.6 million euros). The EBIT improved by 0.1 million euros to –1.6 million euros (2003: –1.7 million euros). In Information Management (authorities, service providers) sales decreased by 20% to 3.8 million euros (2003: 4.7 million euros), while the EBIT improved by 0.1 million euros to 0 million euros (2003: –0.1 million euros).
With 39 million euros the new orders reached the highest level for the first three months since 2001 and were 5% above the first quarter of 2003 (37.5 million euros). The volume of orders increased by to 74 million euros compared to 31 December 2003. with the order from the Saxony State Office for Environment and Geology PSI has attained its first order for control technology from a government office. In the field of energy additional important international orders for PSI control systems were attained.
The group’s equity ratio on 31 March was more than 39%. The long-term and short-term financial obligations were reduced by 2.7 million euros to 3.1 million euros compared to the end of the previous year. Net current assets were 14.1 million euros on 31 March 2004.
As announced, PSI continued investments in new product variations for service providers, maintenance and in control systems for information management in the first quarter and attained initial successes with these products. The new PSIpenta-Version 7, which was developed in conjunction with reference customers, will be launched in June. In the framework of concentrating on the core business PSI sold off the PK Software Engineering GmbH in the first quarter and drove the bundling of resources in the Information Management segment.
To take advantage of the opportunities being offered by the EU expansion, the entry into the Polish market is being prepared. PSI will provide solutions in the new countries on the basis of competitive cost structures.
Despite the weak first quarter and the poor economic development, the Executive Board adheres to the targets for the year published in autumn of 2003.
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 currently employs 1,150 persons in the group.