Analytik Jena AG Enjoying Solid Start to New Financial Year
Jena (Germany), April 28, 2015 – Analytik Jena AG has started the 2015 financial year with significantly increased order entries totaling EUR 32.1 m (previous year: EUR 25.4 m) and a profit of EUR 0.7 m (previous year: EUR -1.5 m) for the period ending on March 31, 2015. This positive result in the period under review was generated solely by the Analytical Instrumentation business unit, while the other segments still posted negative figures in the first quarter of 2015. Based on wide-reaching structural measures, some of which are already well advanced, the Company expects this positive trend in the operating business to continue in 2015. These figures were announced today by the manufacturer of analytical measuring technology and Life Science instruments during its Ordinary General Meeting at Group headquarters in Jena, Germany.
“After a disappointing performance in the past calendar year 2014, in which we were unable to grow sales or generate a positive result, the tide is clearly turning in the first quarter of the 2015 financial year,” says Klaus Berka, CEO of Analytik Jena AG. “In the two core areas of the instrument business, Analytical Instrumentation and Life Science, we’ve managed to achieve double-digit increases in order entries and revenue compared to the previous year. Analytik Jena ended the period with both a positive operating profit and overall result at the Group level.”
Two major orders were notable in the first quarter with a total sales volume of EUR 2.5 m. These were acquired in China, the Company’s most important export market, for its two core areas – Analytical Instrumentation and Life Science. Analytik Jena expects revenue of approximately EUR 110.0 m in the instrument business (i.e. not including project business) as well as an operating profit of EUR 4.0 m to EUR 5.0 m for the 2015 financial year.
The situation in Optics and the project business, in the form of its 50-percent subsidiary AJZ Engineering, remains difficult. Despite solid order entries, which Analytik Jena acquired for its consumer business under the DOCTER® brand at the industry’s leading trade fair IWA in February, the Company was unable to expand sales and profit. Similarly, sales were down compared to the first quarter of 2014 in the Project Business unit due to the continued tension in Russia, a key market. “As we continued work on our Wolshskij project, we achieved tangible successes in the first three months of the financial year. The ruble’s recovery also gives us hope that the project will stabilize. However, realizing Europe’s largest kidney transplant center in Wolshskij represents a major challenge,” continues Berka.
At today’s General Meeting, 6,715,808 shares with the same number of votes were represented of Analytik Jena AG’s share capital of EUR 7,655,697 at the time of the vote. This corresponds to 87,72 % of the Company’s share capital. Agenda items two to seven were put to a vote. These were the resolutions submitted by the Executive Board and Supervisory Board regarding the discharge of the members of the Executive Board and Supervisory Board, as well as the election of an auditor. All of the agenda items were adopted with the required majority.