Utimaco Doubles Its Growth Target to at Least 20 Percent After Record Half-Year
London, 23 February 2005 – After releasing its preliminary results on 20 January 2005, Utimaco today announced its interim results for the first six months (July to December) of the current financial year 2004/2005. The company, which specialises in IT security solutions, has achieved considerable increases in its revenue and turnover in the first half year. Total revenue increased by 35.1 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, to €18.4 million, while the EBIT increased by 113 percent to €4.5 million. Revenue achieved outside Germany contributed significantly to the total revenues by 38.3 percent. After a positive start in the second half of the financial year, and a large order from the Swedish F?¶reningsSparbanken, Utimaco has doubled its growth target for the year as a whole to at least 20 percent.
These positive changes in results mean the undiluted earnings per share after six months equalled €0.25 (previous year: €0.13) and the diluted earnings per share equalled €0.24 (previous year: €0.11). After six months a positive operating cashflow of €2.1 million (previous year: €1.7 million) was achieved. Liquid assets on 31 December 2004 equalled €19.2 million (compared with €16.4 million on 30 June 2004).
The Personal Device Security division, which specialises in software products for protecting data on mobile personal devices and in networks, increased revenue by 29.2 percent to €13.5 million (previous year €10.4 million). The proportion of revenues achieved by license sales for the SafeGuard product family contributed significantly to the total revenues for the Personal Device Security division, by 40.5 percent.
Revenues for the Transaction Security division, which specialises in projects for securing electronic business processes, grew by 54.1 percent to €5.3 million (including internal revenues of €0.3 million) from the previous year’s revenues of €3.4 million including internal revenues of €0.2 million.
“After these positive improvements in our results in the first half year we intend to increase investments further by strengthening our leading market position,” said Christian Bohne, Utimaco’s Financial Director. “At the same time we expect to see our results improving for the year as a whole, compared to last year.”
Furthermore Utimaco has now extended its world-wide cooperation with IBM. In addition to the harddisk encryption SafeGuard Easy, IBM will include Utimaco’s SafeGuard PrivateDisk in its security portfolio. SafeGuard PrivateDisk is a tool that generates a virtual disk drive that serves as an electronic safe for secure storage of sensitive data. IBM will offer both security solutions of Utimaco as security options for ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops.In conjunction with these offerings, Utimaco and IBM have signed a global alliance agreement for joint marketing of encryption solutions for PCs and notebooks.
Commencing 21 February, 2005, Dr. Horst G?¶rtz, founder and chairman of the supervisory board, has resigned from the supervisory board. At the same time the supervisory board unanimously appointed Dr. G?¶rtz honorary chairman of the supervisory board for life, in recognition of his long-standing and special contributions to Utimaco. Going forward, Dr. G?¶rtz will increasingly focus on supporting research and education in the area of IT security via the Horst-G?¶rtz-Foundation he has established. With an approximate 10 percent stake, this not-for-profit foundation is the second largest shareholder of Utimaco and is supported among others professorships at the Ruhr University Bochum and the Technical University Darmstadt.
Proposed by Dr. G?¶rtz, Helmuth Coqui, formerly deputy chairman, has been appointed new chairman of the supervisory board. Helmuth Coqui, a member of Utimaco’s supervisory board since 1996, has extensive experience in the IT industry and previously served as chairman of the management board of Digital Equipment, ATM and Softlab. Prof. Dr. Manfred Schlottke, member of the supervisory board since 2000, has been appointed new deputy chairman. Prof. Dr. Schlottke has a number of years experience in senior management positions at international information and telecommunication companies. He is chairman of TelekomForum, the customer advisory board of Deutsche Telekom AG.
“I am pleased with the progress Utimaco has made since the successful strategic reorientation and am convinced of its sustainability. In this strong position, I am taking the opportunity to hand over to my long-standing colleague Helmuth Coqui” said Dr. Horst G?¶rtz, honorary chairman of the supervisory board.
To view the report for the first six months of 2004/2005, visit :
www.utimaco.com/content_pdf/ir/q2_2005_e.pdf
Utimaco Safeware AG
Utimaco Safeware AG is the leading European producers of professional IT security solutions. The security technology and solutions developed by Utimaco protect the electronic data of companies and government bodies against unauthorised access and guarantee that business processes and administrative procedures in the electronic world are binding and confidential. Utimaco’s Personal Device Security division supplies technologies and solutions for mobile security in the areas of high-level authentication including biometric techniques, encryption and integrity checks. Its products and solutions secure data in terminal server and Citrix environments, on the PC, notebook and PDA at the workplace, and on the move. Utimaco’s Transaction Security division specialises in security solutions for e-business, e-government and e-payment based on its own technologies (telecommunications management systems, hardware security modules, gateways for e-mail security, authentication and digi tal signatures, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and PKI-enabled applications).